How Brain's 'Mirrors' Aid Our Social Understanding - washingtonpost.com
From the article:
"If we empathize with other human beings because of mirror neurons rather than rules, I know what it is for you to be sad because I know what it is to be sad myself," Glenberg said. "When I see you hurt, my mirror neuron system is responding; it is giving me a sense of pain."[emphasis added]
And by removing complex thinking from the ledges of abstraction and rooting it in the physical world, the research also helps show how the physical brain can produce the ephemera of thought. To Glenberg, it suggests that humans are far from alone in being sophisticated thinkers.
Research has shown -- in some ways more convincingly than in humans -- the role of mirror neurons in other animals.
"In fact, when I started investigating these things, I became a vegetarian," Glenberg said. "It became clear to me as a consequence of these theories of embodied cognition that virtually all animals are thinking, and it is difficult to draw a line between those who are thinking and those who aren't."
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