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In 1995, University of Parma neuroscientist Giacomo Rizzolatti was leading a team studying the brain locus of hand motion. They placed electrodes in the inferior frontal cortex of macaque money brains, set out peanuts, and recorded neuronal activity as the monkeys reached for the food and consumed it. It was a relatively routine experiment so the data recorded took everyone by surprise. Here’s why. The same neurons fired whether a monkey ate or watched others eating. Investigators repeated the experiments, confirmed the results, and announced what we now call mirror neurons.
Since then scientists have confirmed that mirror neurons in various parts of the brain—of primates, humans, and birds at least—fire both during actions and during the observation of similar actions taken by another. So, whether you are grieving or you see someone who is bereft, you experience sorrow. When your team scores, you feel invigorated, triumphant, and successful, as if you’ve scored. Seeing what others do creates a template for our own action and emotion, and forms the basis for understanding others.
Marco Iacoboni, Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA Medical School who is renowned for his work on mirror neurons and empathy, explains the machinery. “Whether I see you smiling or I smile, the same neurons fire, sending signals to my emotional brain. The result: the signals evoke the experience of the smile. So, when I see you smile— even on film, and whether or not I know you—I’m not a participant observer feeling happy for you; I am sharing in the experience, feeling happy too”.
Researchers call the brain’s ability to copy action and clone emotional experience “common coding”, and the theory now embraces aspects of cultural transmission, language development, response to music, imitation, morality, political affiliations, consumer choices, and other aspects of social cognition. Furthermore, recent evidence suggests that mirror neurons equip you to infer intention: Will she eat the food she’s just picked up or put it on a plate? Will he reach out and hug his friend or simply stand back smiling? And very importantly, research shows that individuals have the capacity to mirror goals. “If I see you working toward a goal”, Professor Iacoboni told me, “I assimilate what you do and then I consider what I can do to achieve the same goal”.