Science: Human Behavior and Mirror Neurons

Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 25, 2006 12:00 PM

Washington Post science writer Shankar Vedantam was online Monday, Sept. 25 at Noon ET to answer questions about his weekly series of articles exploring aspects of human behavior related to the news and the Monday Science Page feature about mirror neurons.

In Monday's article, How Brain's 'Mirrors' Aid Our Social Understanding , he writes that one of the most intriguing theories to emerge in recent years about how our brains perform is that we have neurons that essentially act as mirrors to other people. When we see someone scratch their head or furrow their brow, we instantly have a sense of their mental state because those actions trigger the same patterns of neural activity in our own minds and allow our brains to quickly deduce what mental states are associated with such patterns.

In this week's Dispatch from the Department of Human Behavior, Shankar reports on the art of apologizing in Apologies Accepted? It Depends on the Offense .

The transcript follows.

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Shankar Vedantam: Welcome to this online chat to discuss my recent series of articles exploring what the news reveals about human behavior, including today's story about which apologies work and which do not. We will also be talking about my science page story today about mirror neurons. There are lots of questions already; please keep them coming in! I am happy to take questions about either story or any of the earlier stories in the human behavior series.

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Baltimore, Md.: Thanks for these articles -- they are interesting and ultimately very useful! I'm interested in the systems you raised by asking "when a person performs an action as when she watches someone else do it, how does the person know who actually did it?" At times, I have observed in myself and others a tendency to overly identify with the emotions others (apparently) feel -- do you think could this be a result of having a strong mirroring system and a relatively weaker sense of individualtion?

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks for the question, Baltimore. Today's mirror neuron story seems to suggest that the mirror neuron system is involved in empathy. To what extent remains unclear, and doubtless there are social and cultural factors involved. Like almost everything else involved with human behavior there are both nature and nurture at play.

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Rockville, Md.: Do mirror neurons have implications for teaching and learning via video ? Does video "prime" the learner to learn more readily ?

Shankar Vedantam: Say more, Rockville. Why would video be better as a teaching tool than hearing a teacher in person?

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Bridgeport, Conn.: As a recovering Anorexic I enjoy being around overweight people because I can "mirror" their actions and "eat food" by watching them and following their actions. I can "Mirror their Hunger". Concerning the Prescription Drug Marinol; which is Synthetic THC. My question is: Does the Marinol mirror the Real THC? If so; then why do I not feel the Mood elevating aspect of the THC as well on the Marinol; tho' I do increase my appetite? Does Marinol really "Mirror" the real THC?

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks, Bridgeport. I really do not know the answer to your Marinol question, but your comment on mirroring the actions of overweight people as an antidote to anorexia is really interesting. There are a wealth of studies that suggest you really may be onto something (although I doubt we have empirical evidence for this.) The groups that surround us influence us in profound ways, often because these influences are beyond our conscious awareness. You have given us a really interesting example of someone who uses this idea in their own life. (Drop me a note at vedantams@washpost.com when you get a chance; I would like to talk some more about your idea.)

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College Park, Md.: What interesting articles -- I sincerely enjoy them all. This is less of a scientific question, however, so please do not feel obligated to respond. I'm just curious to know if you have ever seen the film "What the Bleep Do We Know?" and, if so, what are your thoughts? Thanks! -- CMJ

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks for the feedback, College Park. I'm afraid I have not seen the movie you talk about, but do post a short description for the general conversation.

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Falls Church, Va.: It is possible that 'mirroring' could provide the scientific underpinnings for an ethical theory based on compassion. - Please comment.

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks for the question, Falls Church. A lot of the research into the biological basis of empathy is interested in this question: How much is empathy essentially hardwired into the human brain? The early research so far does suggest that the mirror system in the brain is involved in empathy; people who showed a greater mirror response to some cues also seemed to show higher scores on psychological scales of empathy. If we are indeed biologically predisposed toward empathy and altruism (this of course does not rule out the drive to selfishness, which may also be hardwired) then this may partly explain why so many ethical theories are based on the idea of compassion. While some people could say this "explains away" religious beliefs about empathy, based on the idea that religions are only following what has already been hardwired, you could also argue (as many religious scientists do) that the biological capacity for empathy in the brain is what you would expect in a brain that has been devised, even indirectly, by a divine hand. A more interesting question might be whether we can change the capacity for empathy by biological interventions -- will there one day be brain surgery techniques to make people more altruistic? It's science fiction at the moment!

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Anonymous: The implications of mirror neurons for teaching are enormous. One is that, if children mirror those in front of them, then what kind of people teachers are is even more important than what they say.

Shankar Vedantam: I think you raise an excellent point, anonymous. We learn an immense amount through example, rather than by the articulation of ideas. I think this is part of the reason leaders who lead by example are immensely more effective than leaders who say, "do as I say, not as I do!"

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Anonymous: Your article today on Brain "Mirrors" was very interesting. I am curious if any of the fMRI scans were done on those with Autism and what the results were? Also, do you think these findings will help in addressing the symptoms of Autism? Could we learn how to stimulate those parts of the brain that aide in social awareness? Thanks.

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks for the question, anonymous. The mirror neuron work certainly seems to be of importance to autism, given the social deficits that seem to accompany that disorder. To the best of my knowledge, there is no theory at the moment that links autism to mirror neuron problems. Rather, scientists think that understanding the social brain may give clues into autism down the road. As to your second question, we already know of a number of interventions that can change the brain's social awareness -- they are not in the realm of brain surgery but psychology. I think there is quite a bit of evidence that children with autism are helped by behavioral interventions, as are people with schizophrenia who also sometimes suffer from a lack of social awareness. No one is suggesting these interventions are a cure for those disorders, but there is certainly good reason to believe they can help improve functioning.

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Hagerstown, Md.: I found quite a bit of similarity in your descriptions of our brain's first language and American Sign language. I have often thought that a sign language would have been a natural first language. Do you know of any research that connects these two areas?

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks for the question, Hagerstown. There are a couple of other questions that explore one of the subtexts in this question so let's take a second with this. It is important to distinguish between the mirroring that two people facing each other do, where one mimics the action of the other. How the mirror system in the brain -- this is at the level of neurons -- is linked to imitation and mimicry, which is at the level of behavior, remains unclear. For example, experiments have convincingly showed that monkeys have mirror neuron systems. However, it is not entirely clear whether monkeys imitate each other in the same way that humans do, where you follow another person's actions not blindly, but with an eye to achieving the goal of the action.

As to your specific question, I think Sign Language has the same basic principles of language as spoken language, in that it follows grammatical rules and links the actual world with abstract concepts. I am not sure whether people who exclusively Sign experience language differently than people who speak and listen; my guess is that they do not. The ability for language (not English, Dutch, sign, but language in general) seems to be an innate property of the brain. Which vehicle gets used seems less important.

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Munich, Germany: Is the phenomenon of mirror neurons associated in some way with the group behavior that causes other people in a room to scratch themselves or cough after someone else does? I've read that this group scratching and coughing behavior has been used by personnel specialists to determine if someone has management potential. The people who respond the least to the scratching or coughing of others is considered to have a strong management personality. If there's a connection between mirror neurons and group scratching or coughing, then this management test would also test for people with little empathy. Perhaps this is the reason for organizational misbehavior.

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks for the question, Munich. You had me laughing out loud, but then I am not a manager! I think the distinction I made with the previous question applies here as well; don't confuse the mirror neuron system with imitation at a behavioral level. The two may indeed be linked, but not in as straightforward a way as we would imagine. There are lots of alternate explanations why we are influenced by the groups around us; there are sound evolutionary reasons why individuals in species follow one another and learn from the group, and I am guessing the mirror neuron system in humans grew out of this larger principle and not the other way around. Much of the mirror system is not aimed at causing people to behave like each other, but to cause people to UNDERSTAND each other without need for words or explanation. A person who coughs has something stuck in their throat. The person in the audience who yawns is sleepy or bored. Such social information is important to us in our everyday lives; it does not mean we automatically mimic the other person by yawning or coughing ourselves.

If people are selecting managers based on experiments like the one you describe, I think they may need some better techniques -- and soon!

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Atlanta, Ga.: To add to anonymous: The behavior of presidents get mirrored all the time as well. We heard about it a lot with Clinton, but it is also happening with Bush. People use much more doublespeak in everyday life nowadays. Just read the newspaper to see it.

Shankar Vedantam: Questions and comments are far outstripping my answers. I will post a few to add to the general conversation without adding much myself.

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Saskatchewan: The concepts of 'mirror neurons' and 'hard-wiring' are certainly very appealing for understanding human behaviour and social psychology. However, it is misleading to reduce the science to such simplistic terms. For one thing, while the 'mirror neuron' concept does a fantastic job of explaining reactions to a direct stimulus at the 'microscopic' level, it does a poor job of explaining responses to a complex, indirect stimulus, such as a feeling of guilt for pressing the legendary button in New York that causes a totally unknown person in Tokyo to die instantly by electric shock. Also, the nature of causality claimed to be explained by the 'feedback loop system' among populations of neurons to explain the process of 'hard-wiring' in remote-stimulus behaviour formation has still to be adequately researched. The book 'How Brains Make Up Their Minds', by Walter J. Freeman, makes an attempt, in its last chapter, to explain the interaction between the roles of genes or biological factors and 'memes' or culturally-formed behaviour patterns in the creation of knowledge and meaning in societies. But the argument is not fully convincing.

Shankar Vedantam: another useful comment.

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Fairway, Kan.: How hard is it to consciously break biological mirroring - say our parents mirror a negative behavior?

Shankar Vedantam: will answer this one and the next together.

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Fairfax, Va.: This is very interesting and troubling at the same time. Are you saying that for young children, that mirroring would lead one to say that negative traits of older siblings could have a serious repercussions for young children?

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks, Fairfax. To remind us again, the mirror neuron system is not about imitation, it is about understanding other people, and why they do what they do. You could easily see why being around people with negative traits could be problematic for the very young and impressionable, but I am not sure this has much to do with the mirror neuron system.

Imitating someone else is something we can do consciously; we have no conscious power over the mirror systems in the brain. If I hear you make a sucking sound, I automatically think you are drinking through a straw (for example) because the sound automatically conjures up a similar sound in my brain and I automatically deduce why and when I would make such a sound myself. Note this is all automatic, which is why we find it so hard to understand when some people with certain disorders cannot do this. To the person with schizophrenia, my eye roll at the performance of a local sports team may not be comprehensible; indeed, it may be interpreted as an altogether different emotion. Studies have shown that people with certain disorders are often unable to read expressions, which is something that people without those disorders do effortlessly. One possibility is that this has to do with the mirror system, but we should be careful to say that no one knows this right now.

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Rockville, Md.: Has there been any study differentiating mirroring behavior between men and women. Cultural tradition and some science reinforces the idea that females are more likely to take an interest in others' feelings, thoughts, etc. So do their brain sectors' patterns mirror others more strongly/more frequently? Very interesting article.

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks, Rockville. There was another question posted on gender so let me post that one too and answer both together.

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Arlington, Va.: In "The Female Brain," Dr. Louann Brizendine says (p. 118) there may be more mirror neurons in the human female brain than in the male brain. What does the literature say about this? Any definite conclusions yet?

Shankar Vedantam: I have little trouble accepting the fact that men and women have different brains. But what is even more true is that men have different brains from each other, as do women. (Intra-sex differences, in other words, may be just as large or larger than inter-sex differences, a point that is often papered over when people compare GROUPS of men to GROUPS of women. While some of us do have inflated opinions of ourselves, sadly none of us forms a group on our own!)

So to go back to Rockville's question a moment ago, I have no problem whatever with the idea that different cultures shape people's brains differently (this was the nature-nurture acting in concert point that I made at the start.)However we should be very cautious in stating that these differences are because of differences in the brain; it is just as possible that differences in the brain are caused by culture or better yet, some combination of the two.

Implicit in these questions is the assumption that there is an inviolable and static aspect of us (nature) and a set of changing influences (nurture or culture) ... the truth may be much more complicated where nurture and nature act through one another, like those chickens and eggs ...

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Duluth, Minn.: It would appear that one of the main differences between domestic dogs and wolves would be this ability to mirror. Please comment.

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks, Duluth. It is possible that dogs may differ from wolves in terms of their mirror systems, but again, I think this confuses mirror neurons in the brain with imitative behavior. The two may be linked, but quite possibly not in obvious ways. For example, can you imagine a scenario where both dogs and wolves perfectly understand what a human master wants (I said this was hypothetical!) but the dog follows the command because it also has a greater innate need for social bonding while the wolf does not? It would be a mistake to think of mirror neurons as the sole factor influencing affinitive or imitative behavior; behavior is usually the product of many competing forces and influences.

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Standish, Mich.: What do you consider empathy? I have read blogs from people with autism who say that they do empathize, but have difficulty responding to other people's pain. They need to learn how to respond. Do you agree or disagree?

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks, Standish. What wonderful questions these are. This one gets to the point that what we consider empathy is really the product of many separate things. One, the ability to recognize another mind as a separate entity; two, the ability to experience what that mind may be going through; three, the willingness and ability to act out one's emotional response in some way. (There may be more things I am missing.) A gap in any one of these could translate into a "lack of empathy" even though the other aspects are present.

And then you could get into questions of how much each of these skills is innate or learned, or some combination of the two. Human behavior seems simple until you try to understand it in detail, and then it gets very complicated. Which may be why poets often seem more skilled at this game than neuroscientists.

Here's what my favorite poet, WH Auden, had to say about empathy in "Shield of Achilles"

That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,

Were axioms to him, who'd never heard

Of any world where promises were kept,

Or one could weep because another wept.

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Atlanta: A few years ago I heard a radio story that described a series of sculptures built as a memorial to the victims of an airline crash. The reporter didn't have to say much more than mention that the statues were of women doubled over in grief before I mentally "saw" the statues and began to cry. How amazing that just -hearing- about a -statue- of a person would have that effect - and a powerful example of the mirroring you wrote about today.

Shankar Vedantam: running out of time, posting some comments without comment

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Vienna, Va.: If a person grows up with poor eyesight and hearing, but far from blind or deaf, is he or she still likely to experience difficulty or delays in picking up social cues from other people (and thus delays in subconsciously formulating an appropriate social response)? Is such a person likely to have trouble in being a good listener (because good listening would be harder work)? Thank you.

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks, Vienna. I can see how having deficits in certain senses can impede social development, but I think I can equally (and more encouragingly) see how many people with grave deficits have extraordinary social skills and awareness. Much of the research into mirror neurons speaks to the importance of social links in our species; in all probability, we have mirror neurons because we depend for our very survival on each other. The drive for social connection and understanding is really innate (I don't mean everyone is touchy-feely, but that most normal people have little difficulty reading other people's faces and expressions, even those from entirely different cultures, as the psychologist Paul Ekman has found.) So while social awareness can clearly be more difficult for some than for others, I think it may be overly pessimistic to think such skills are lost entirely because of audio or visual deficits.

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Atlanta, Ga.: Great, just what we need, scientific research that tells politicians that apologizing for misdeeds does you no good so you might as well continue to lie about them. Ugh.

Shankar Vedantam: I'll end by addressing this question about the other article, the one today about why some apologies get accepted while others do not. It found that people who commit nefarious acts (wrongs of integrity) are often not forgiven when they confess, and that these people are held in no worse esteem than people who commit such acts who do not confess, but are later found out. I suppose politicians could take away the message you suggested (although they would have to be quite dense not to have realized this anyway through numerous examples that I cite from Bill Clinton to Arnold Schwarzenegger to Sen George Allen) but the larger point I was trying to make is that perhaps we ought to reconsider our opinions of people who do immoral things. Human behavior is complex, and people do (sometimes) mend their ways. Sorry really can mean sorry (and not just, "can we please forget about this and vote for me!")

Thanks everyone for joining the online chat. Keep the ideas and suggestions and feedback coming.

Shankar

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