The Mirror Mechanism: a neural mechanism to understand others
Our life is characterized by a very complex network of social interactions. How do we understand the behavior of others? The classical philosophical stance is that we understand others by inferring their internal mental states and by ascribing a causal role in generating the observed behavior to these states. Often, however, in our daily life, we make sense of others’ behavior without resorting to inferential processes. In Giacomo Rizzolatti’s talk he will describe a neural mechanism – the mirror neuron mechanism- that allows individuals to understand directly (empathically) the actions and emotions of others. This mechanism does not require any inferential mental processing. He will conclude discussing some implications of these findings for autistic spectrum disorder and some other neurological disorders. La conferenza è in inglese.