Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA17771 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 30 Jan 2001 20:27:59 GMT From: <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 14:31:24 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Mirror neurons Message-ID: <3A76D03C.4620.523950@localhost> In-reply-to: <3A771B73.3E957914@pacbell.net> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 30 Jan 2001, at 11:52, Bill Spight wrote:
> Dear Mark,
>
> Thanks for the additional information. :-)
>
> > So, it looks like these experiments have been entirely with
> > primates.
> >
>
> And with looking. What about listening? If mirror neurons are a good
> category, maybe they are used in listening, as well.
>
> Have they distinguished neurons that fire when we observe someone
> doing what we can also do (and are involved in our doing that) from
> neurons that fire when we think about doing that but are not observing
> the behavior?
>
> Many thanks,
>
They're in the vicinity of Broca's area, responsible for the
transmutation of meant words into speech, a basically transcriptive
executing property. I would at first thought have expected such
neurons to be closer to Wernicke's area, which is responsible for
semantic processing. A person with damage to Broca's area
speaks slowly and haltingly, but makes sense, while a person with
damage may be loquacious, but meaninglessly so (a person
suffering damage to the arcuate fasciculus, which connects these
two, suffers global aphasia). However, on second thought, there is
the likelihood that we subliminally mimic the movements of others
as we do with speech or text (our tongues and palates silently and
slightly move as we hear or read language). Of course we KNOW
what they're doing, but we also, sublminally, are DOING what
they're doing; thus these neurons would fire the same as they
would if we were overtly doing the same things we are observing.
Imitation is a powerful force in humans - a good argument for
conserving the meanings found in the spelling MIMEtics.
>
> Bill
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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>
>
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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