The Valve - A Literary Organ | Culture Influences “Mirror Neurons” (Doh!)

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Thursday, July 19, 2007

Culture Influences “Mirror Neurons” (Doh!)

Posted by Bill Benzon on 07/19/07 at 05:05 AM

Over at Physorg.com there’s a report of recent research demonstrating that the so-called mirror neurons are influenced by culture:

Mirror neurons fire when an individual performs an action, but they also fire when someone watches another individual perform that same action. Neuroscientists believe this “mirroring” is the neural mechanism by which we can read the minds of other people and empathize with them.

When it comes to the influence of culture, they found that indeed, the mirror neuron network responds differently depending on whether we are looking at someone who shares our culture, or someone who doesn’t.

The researcher’s used two actors, one an American, the other a Nicaraguan, to perform a series of gestures--American, Nicaraguan, and meaningless hand gestures, to a group of American subjects. A procedure called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to measure the levels of so-called “corticospinal excitability” (CSE)—which scientists use to probe the activity of mirror neurons.

They found that the American participants demonstrated higher mirror neuron activity while observing the American making gestures compared to the Nicaraguan. And when the Nicaraguan actor performed American gestures, the mirror neuron activation of the observers dropped.

The research is published in PLoS ONE: Do You See What I Mean? Corticospinal Excitability During Observation of Culture-Specific Gestures.

Cross posted at Cognitive Approaches to Literature.

Comments

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Since this note referenced the blog in general I assume the offer is open to all Valvistas and Valvoholics. – BB

By Emily on 07/19/07 at 12:59 PM | Permanent link to this comment

There’s a great NOVA Science Now on this very topic. It’s definitely worth checking out: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3204/01.html

By on 07/19/07 at 03:45 PM | Permanent link to this comment

Yeah mirror neurons are kind of where it’s at when it comes to research right now. I haven’t read the particular study but I will when I have some time.

I think it’s interesting how they tend to fire when the same “actions” are being performed, not just the same movements. That is, things like the performer’s observed motivation and understanding of the action play a role. So it seems to be that the Americans here could be operating with the assumption that that the movements being made mean different things to the participants.

By on 07/22/07 at 01:40 PM | Permanent link to this comment

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Thursday, July 19, 2007

Culture Influences “Mirror Neurons” (Doh!)

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