CHAPTER 6

1. For details, see G. Rizzolatti et al., «From Mirror Neurons to Imitation: Facts and Speculations,» in Andrew N. Meltzoff & Wolfgang Prinz, eds., The Imitative Mind: Development, Evolution, and Brain Bases (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); and G. Rizzolatti & M. Gentilucci, «Motor and Visual-Motor Functions of the Premotor Cortex,» in Pasko Rakic & Wolf Singer, eds., Neurobiology of Neocortex (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1988). An excellent recent overview is Giacomo Rizzolatti & Corrado Sinigaglia, Mirrors in the Brain: How Our Minds Share Actions and Emotions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

2. The mirror-neuron system may occasionally go awry. Patients suffering from a rare but well-known neurological syndrome called echopraxia are inevitably forced to act out any behavior they observe in other human beings. What likely happens in these patients is that the mirror-neuron system is inadvertently coupled to the motor system because of lack of prefrontal inhibition. Your mirror neurons come online and lose their ordinary status as purely offline simulators. Therefore, you are literally driven by the actions you see other people performing.

3. See V. Gallese & A. Goldman, «Mirror Neurons and the Simulation Theory of Mind-Reading,» Trends Cog. Sci. 2:493–501 (1998); M. Iacoboni et al., «Cortical Mechanisms of Imitation,» Science 268:2526-8 (1999); and V. Gallese, «The 'Shared Manifold' Hypothesis: From Mirror Neurons to Empathy,» Jour. Consciousness Studies 8:33–50 (2001).

4. See T. Metzinger & V. Gallese, «The Emergence of a Shared Action Ontology: Building Blocks for a Theory,» in G. Knoblich et al., eds., Self and Action. Special issue of Consciousness & Cognition 12(4):549–571 (2003).

5. V. Gallese, «Intentional Attunement: A Neurophysiological Perspective on Social Cognition and Its Disruption in Autism,» Brain Res. 1079:15–24 (2006); F. de Vignemont & T. Singer, «The Empathic Brain: How, When, and Why?» Trends Cog. Sci. 10:435–441 (2006).

6. L. Carr et al., «Neural Mechanisms of Empathy in Humans: A Relay from Neural Systems for Imitation to Limbic Areas,» Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 100(9):5497–5502 (2003); see also A. Goldman & C. S. Sripada, «Simulationist Models of Face-Based Emotion Recognition,» Cognition

94:193–213 (2005).

7. A. D. Lawrence et al., «Selective Disruption of the Recognition of Facial Expressions of Anger,» NeuroReport 13(6):881–884 (2002).

8. I. Morrison et al., «Vicarious Responses to Pain in Anterior Cingulate Cortex: Is Empathy a Multisensory Issue?» Cog. Affec. & Behav. Neuroscience 4:270–278 (2004); P. L. Jackson et al., «How Do We Perceive the Pain of Others: A Window into the Neural Processes Involved in Empathy,» NeuroImage 24:771–779 (2005); M. Botvinick et al., «Viewing Facial Expressions of Pain Engages Cortical Areas Involved in the Direct Experience of Pain,» NeuroImage 25:315–319 (2005).

9. This was the step from what I call second-order embodiment to thirdorder embodiment. In order to counteract the semantic inflation of the term «embodiment,» I have introduced the notions of «first-order embodiment» (the bottom-up self-organization of intelligent behavior avoiding explicit computation and relying only on physical properties of the system), «secondorder embodiment» (generating intelligent behavior by using an integrated representation of the body as a whole, by internally representing oneself as embodied), and «third-order embodiment» (the functional elevation of second-order embodiment to the level of global availability, i.e., the conscious experience of embodiment). A short summary can be found in Scholarpedia 2 (10):4174 (2007) at www.scholarpedia.org/ article/Self_Models.

10. V. Gallese, «Embodied Simulation: From Neurons to Phenomenal Experience,» Phen. Cog. Sci. 4:23–38 (2005).

11. Gallese calls this specific phenomenal state «intentional attunement» — the peculiar experiential quality of familiarity with other individuals that arises because we implicitly match their intentions with processes that go on in our own brain when we form such intentions.

12. See T. Metzinger, «Self Models,» Scholarpedia 2(10):4174 (2007) at www.scholarpedia.org/article/Self_Models; and Metzinger, «Empirical Perspectives from the Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity,» Progress in Brain Res. 168:215–246 (2008).

13. See W. B. Carpenter, Principles of Mental Physiology (London: Routledge, 1875). For a review, see H. Richter, «Zum Problem der ideomotorischen Phanomene,» Zeit. fur Psychologie 71:161–254 (1957).

14. T. Lipps, «Einfuhlung, innere Nachahmung und Organempfindung,» Arch. der Psychologie 1:185–204 (1903).

15. See G. Rizzolatti & Laila Craighero, «The Mirror-Neuron System,» Ann. Rev. Neurosci. 27:169–192 (2004); the classical paper is Rizzolatti & M. A. Arbib, «Language Within Our Grasp,» Trends Neurosci. 21:188–194 (1998). For a brief first overview, see Rizzolatti & Destro, «Mirror Neurons,» Scholarpedia 3(1):2055 (2008).