Scientists Say Everyone

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Scientists Say Everyone Can Read Minds

 

Special to LiveScience

LiveScience.com Wed Apr 27,10:24 AM ET

 

Empathy allows us to feel the emotions of others, to identify and

understand their feelings and motives and see things from their

perspective. How we generate empathy remains a subject of intense

debate in cognitive science.

 

Some scientists now believe they may have finally discovered its

root. We're all essentially mind readers, they say.

 

The idea has been slow to gain acceptance, but evidence is mounting.

 

Mirror neurons

 

In 1996, three neuroscientists were probing the brain of a macaque

monkey when they stumbled across a curious cluster of cells in the

premotor cortex, an area of the brain responsible for planning

movements. The cluster of cells fired not only when the monkey

performed an action, but likewise when the monkey saw the same

action performed by someone else. The cells responded the same way

whether the monkey reached out to grasp a peanut, or merely watched

in envy as another monkey or a human did.

 

Because the cells reflected the actions that the monkey observed in

others, the neuroscientists named them " mirror neurons. "

 

Later experiments confirmed the existence of mirror neurons in

humans and revealed another surprise. In addition to mirroring

actions, the cells reflected sensations and emotions.

 

" Mirror neurons suggest that we pretend to be in another person's

mental shoes, " says Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at the

University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. " In fact,

with mirror neurons we do not have to pretend, we practically are in

another person's mind. "

 

Since their discovery, mirror neurons have been implicated in a

broad range of phenomena, including certain mental disorders. Mirror

neurons may help cognitive scientists explain how children develop a

theory of mind (ToM), which is a child's understanding that others

have minds similar to their own. Doing so may help shed light on

autism, in which this type of understanding is often missing.

 

Theory theory

 

Over the years, cognitive scientists have come up with a number of

theories to explain how ToM develops. The " theory theory "

and " simulation theory " are currently two of the most popular.

 

 

Theory theory describes children as budding social scientists. The

idea is that children collect evidence -- in the form of gestures

and expressions -- and use their everyday understanding of people to

develop theories that explain and predict the mental state of people

they come in contact with.

 

Vittorio Gallese, a neuroscientist at the University of Parma in

Italy and one of original discovers of mirror neurons, has another

name for this theory: he calls it the " Vulcan Approach, " in honor of

the Star Trek protagonist Spock, who belonged to an alien race

called the Vulcans who suppressed their emotions in favor of logic.

Spock was often unable to understand the emotions that underly human

behavior.

 

Gallese himself prefers simulation theory over this Vulcan approach.

 

 

Natural mind readers

 

Simulation theory states that we are natural mind readers. We place

ourselves in another person's " mental shoes, " and use our own mind

as a model for theirs.

 

Gallese contends that when we interact with someone, we do more than

just observe the other person's behavior. He believes we create

internal representations of their actions, sensations and emotions

within ourselves, as if we are the ones that are moving, sensing and

feeling.

 

Many scientists believe that mirror neurons embody the predictions of

simulation theory. " We share with others not only the way they

normally act or subjectively experience emotions and sensations, but

also the neural circuits enabling those same actions, emotions and

sensations: the mirror neuron systems, " Gallese told LiveScience.

Gallese points out, however, that the two theories are not mutually

exclusive.

If the mirror neuron system is defective or damaged, and our ability

to empathize is lost, the observe-and-guess method of theory theory

may be the only option left. Some scientists suspect this is what

happens in autistic people, whose mental disorder prevents them from

understanding the intentions and motives of others.

 

Tests underway

 

 

The idea is that the mirror neuron systems of autistic individuals

are somehow impaired or deficient, and that the resulting " mind-

blindness " prevents them from simulating the experiences of others.

For autistic individuals, experience is more observed than lived,

and the emotional undercurrents that govern so much of our human

behavior are inaccessible. They guess the mental states of others

through explicit theorizing, but the end result is a list --

mechanical and impersonal -- of actions, gestures and expressions

void of motive, intent, or emotion.

 

Several labs are now testing the hypothesis that autistic

individuals have a mirror neuron deficit and cannot simulate the

mental states of others.

 

One recent experiment by Hugo Theoret and colleagues at the

University of

Montreal

showed that mirror neurons normally active during the observation of

hand movements in non-autistic individuals are silent in those who

have autism.

 

" You either simulate with mirror neurons, or the mental states of

others are completely precluded to you, " said Iacoboni.