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Saturday, April 28, 2007

Neuromythology

Posted by Bill Benzon on 04/28/07 at 09:43 AM

(Cross posted at Cognitive Approaches to Literature.)

Slate magazine has a set of articles on neuroscience. I’ve not read them all. But I’ve been through the appropriately skeptical pieces by John Horgan and George Johnson on so-called “neurotheology” and I recommend Alison Gopnik’s debunking of the mirror neurons craze:

Mirror neurons have become the “left brain/right brain” of the 21st century. The idea that these cells could make a hero out of Wesley Autrey began with a genuine and important discovery about the brains of macaque monkeys. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, neuroscientists found a population of cells that fired whenever a monkey prepared to act but also when it watched another animal act. They called these cells “mirror neurons.” It didn’t take long for scientists and science writers to speculate that mirror neurons might serve as the physiological basis for a wide range of social behaviors, from altruism to art appreciation. Headlines like “Cells That Read Minds” or “How Brain’s ‘Mirrors’ Aid Our Social Understanding” tapped into our intuitions about connectedness. Maybe this cell, with its mellifluous name, gives us our special capacity to understand one another-to care, to learn, and to communicate. Could mirror neurons be responsible for human language, culture, empathy, and morality?

The myth of mirror neurons may not do much harm. Perhaps it’s even good for science that in the 21st century we turn to the brain, rather than gods and monsters, for our mythical images. Still, science and science writing are supposed to get us closer to the truth, while the myth of mirror neurons may do just the opposite. Instead of teaching us about how the mind works, it may perpetuate some broad misconceptions about neuroscience and what the study of the brain can tell us about human nature.

Gopnik goes on to point out four ways in which the mirror neuron hype is misleading:

First, it suggests that we can generalize directly from other animals to people. . . .

Second, the myth suggests that brain structure is innate. It assumes that we’re born with these special cells that then allow us to connect with other people. . . .

Third, the myth leads us to believe that brain-imaging studies can tell us what neurons do. . . .

A fourth misconception perpetuated by the myth holds that a single type of cell can be responsible for a single type of experience. . . .

Read the article for clear explications of these points.

Comments

Wow, Bill, congratulations on the CogLit launch! This is the only research area to ever made me think wistfully of graduate school, so I’m very pleased to see a central resource starting up.

For any intrigued Valvists, there are now a bunch of excellent cog-and-neuro blogs out there. Two favorites from my own loglist are The Neurocritic (always entertaining on the subject of mirror neurons) and Mixing Memory.

By Ray Davis on 04/28/07 at 12:52 PM | Permanent link to this comment

Thanks, Ray, though credit goes to Margaret Freeman and Clay Walker. I second your recommendation of Mixing Memory. I’ll check out the Neurocritic.

By Bill Benzon on 04/28/07 at 01:23 PM | Permanent link to this comment

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Saturday, April 28, 2007

Neuromythology

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