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Conceptualizing and testing action understanding.

Emma L Thompson1, Geoffrey Bird2, Caroline Catmur1

  • 1Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF, UK.

Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
|August 9, 2019
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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Mirror neurons may help identify actions but likely do not support understanding the goals or intentions behind them. This research critiques definitions of action understanding and their relation to mirror neuron function.

Keywords:
Action identificationAction perceptionAction understandingGoal identificationIntention identificationMentalizingMirror neuronsTMSfMRI

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Philosophy of Mind

Background:

  • The concept of action understanding is linked to mirror neuron function.
  • Multiple definitions of action understanding exist, each positing distinct psychological processes.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To critique existing definitions of action understanding.
  • To evaluate the claim that mirror neurons perform action understanding.
  • To examine the relationship between mirror neurons and different facets of action understanding.

Main Methods:

  • Literature review and conceptual analysis.
  • Delineation of three distinct definitions of action understanding: action identification, goal identification, and intention identification.
  • Examination of the mirror neuron literature in relation to each definition.

Main Results:

  • Action identification involves recognizing actions based on specific body part configurations.
  • Goal and intention identification require generalizing across actions to infer goals or motivations.
  • Evidence suggests mirror neurons may contribute to action identification, but not goal or intention identification.

Conclusions:

  • Mirror neurons are more consistently linked to action identification than to understanding the goals or intentions behind actions.
  • The current evidence base does not strongly support mirror neurons' role in inferring higher-level aspects of action, such as intentions.