Before and below ‘theory of mind’: embodied simulation and the neural correlates of social cognition
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological SciencesPublished 13 February 2007Open access
Vittorio Gallese
Citations793
Generate an AI Snapshot to get a quick, structured summary of this paper.
Study Snapshot
ObjectiveStudy objective
MethodsResearch methodology
PopulationPopulation studied
Sample sizeSample sizes
OutcomesStudy outcomes here
ResultsStudy results comes here
LimitationsResearch study limitations comes here
A concise AI-generated summary of the paper will appear here once you click Generate AI Snapshot.
TL;DR
Embodied simulation and the mirror neuron system underpinning it provide the means to share communicative intentions, meaning and reference, thus granting the parity requirements of social communication.
Abstract
The automatic translation of folk psychology into newly formed brain modules specifically dedicated to mind-reading and other social cognitive abilities should be carefully scrutinized. Searching for the brain location of intentions, beliefs and desires-as such-might not be the best epistemic strategy to disclose what social cognition really is. The results of neurocognitive research suggest that in the brain of primates, mirror neurons, and more generally the premotor system, play a major role in several aspects of social cognition, from action and intention understanding to language processing. This evidence is presented and discussed within the theoretical frame of an embodied simulation account of social cognition. Embodied simulation and the mirror neuron system underpinning it provide the means to share communicative intentions, meaning and reference, thus granting the parity requirements of social communication.
Keywords
Psychology
Metaphors We Live By
16,514 Citations2003George Lakoff, Mark L. Johnson
Choice Reviews OnlineActs of meaning
8,196 Citations1991
Jerome Bruner argues that the cognitive revolution has led psychology away from the deeper objective of understanding mind as a creator of meanings, and only by breaking out of the limitations imposed by a computational model of mind can be grasped.
The Journal of Higher EducationWomen, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind
7,437 Citations1988Terence Odlin, George Lakoff
Annual Review of NeuroscienceTHE MIRROR-NEURON SYSTEM
7,063 Citations2004Giacomo Rizzolatti, Laila Craighero
A neurophysiological mechanism appears to play a fundamental role in both action understanding and imitation, and those properties specific to the human mirror-neuron system that might explain the human capacity to learn by imitation are stressed.
ScienceThe Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?
5,179 Citations2002Marc D. Hauser, Noam Chomsky +1 more
BrainAction recognition in the premotor cortex
4,874 Citations1996Vittorio Gallese, Luciano Fadiga +2 more
It is proposed that mirror neurons form a system for matching observation and execution of motor actions, similar to that of mirror neurons exists in humans and could be involved in recognition of actions as well as phonetic gestures.
Behavioral and Brain SciencesUnderstanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition
4,847 Citations2005Michael Tomasello, Malinda Carpenter +3 more
It is argued and present evidence that great apes understand the basics of intentional action, but they still do not participate in activities involving joint intentions and attention (shared intentionality), and children's skills of shared intentionality develop gradually during the first 14 months of life.
Cognitive Brain ResearchPremotor cortex and the recognition of motor actions
4,748 Citations1996Giacomo Rizzolatti, Luciano Fadiga +2 more
It is suggested that the development of the lateral verbal communication system in man derives from a more ancient communication system based on recognition of hand and face gestures.
Experimental Brain ResearchUnderstanding motor events: a neurophysiological study
3,515 Citations1992Giuseppe di Pellegrino, Luciano Fadiga +3 more
It is reported here that many neurons of the rostral part of inferior premotor cortex of the monkey discharge during goal-directed hand movements such as grasping, holding, and tearing, which indicates that premotor neurons can retrieve movements not only on the basis of stimulus characteristics, but also on the based of the meaning of the observed actions.
Nature reviews. NeuroscienceNeurophysiological mechanisms underlying the understanding and imitation of action
3,300 Citations2001Giacomo Rizzolatti, Leonardo Fogassi +1 more
Evidence for the existence of a system, the 'mirror system', that seems to serve this mapping function in primates and humans is discussed, and its implications for the understanding and imitation of action are explored.
Trends in Cognitive SciencesMirror neurons and the simulation theory of mind-reading
3,128 Citations1998Vittorio Gallese
The activity of mirror neurons, and the fact that observers undergo motor facilitation in the same muscular groups as those utilized by target agents, are findings that accord well with simulation theory but would not be predicted by theory theory.
Archives of NeurologyThe Mirror Neuron System
3,114 Citations2009Giacomo Rizzolatti, Laila Craighero
The clinical implications of the mirror system are discussed, which is involved in understanding others' actions and their intentions behind them, and it underlies mechanisms of observational learning.
Trends in NeurosciencesLanguage within our grasp
2,809 Citations1998Giacomo Rizzolatti, Michael A. Arbib
It is proposed here that an observation/execution matching system provides a necessary bridge from'doing' to'communicating', as the link between actor and observer becomes a link between the sender and the receiver of each message.
ScienceCortical Mechanisms of Human Imitation
2,691 Citations1999Marco Iacoboni, Roger P. Woods +4 more
Two areas with activation properties that become active during finger movement, regardless of how it is evoked, and their activation should increase when the same movement is elicited by the observation of an identical movement made by another individual are found.
Cognitive NeuropsychologyThe Brain's concepts: the role of the Sensory-motor system in conceptual knowledge
2,617 Citations2005Vittorio Gallese, George Lakoff
It is proposed that the sensory-motor system has the right kind of structure to characterise both sensory- motor and more abstract concepts, and it is argued against this position using neuroscientific evidence, results from neural computation, and results about the nature of concepts from cognitive linguistics.
ScienceDo 15-Month-Old Infants Understand False Beliefs?
2,355 Citations2005Kristine H. Onishi, Renée Baillargeon
A novel nonverbal task is used to examine 15-month-old infants' ability to predict an actor's behavior on the basis of her true or false belief about a toy's hiding place, supporting the view that, from a young age, children appeal to mental states—goals, perceptions, and beliefs—to explain the behavior of others.
Psychonomic Bulletin & ReviewGrounding language in action
2,337 Citations2002Arthur M. Glenberg, Michael P. Kaschak
The data support an embodied theory of meaning that relates the meaning of sentences to human action, and are inconsistent with theories of language comprehension in which meaning is represented as a set of relations among nodes.
European Journal of NeuroscienceAction observation activates premotor and parietal areas in a somatotopic manner: an fMRI study
2,256 Citations2001Giovanni Buccino, Ferdinand Binkofski +8 more
Trends in Cognitive SciencesA unifying view of the basis of social cognition
2,195 Citations2004Vittorio Gallese, Christian Keysers +1 more
NeuronSomatotopic Representation of Action Words in Human Motor and Premotor Cortex
2,192 Citations2004Olaf Hauk, Ingrid S. Johnsrude +1 more
It is demonstrated that the referential meaning of action words has a correlate in the somatotopic activation of motor and premotor cortex, which rules out a unified "meaning center" in the human brain and supports a dynamic view according to which words are processed by distributed neuronal assemblies with cortical topographies that reflect word semantics.
ScienceParietal Lobe: From Action Organization to Intention Understanding
2,011 Citations2005Leonardo Fogassi, Pier Francesco Ferrari +4 more
Inferior parietal lobule neurons were studied when monkeys performed motor acts embedded in different actions and when they observed similar acts done by an experimenter to allow the observer to understand the agent's intentions.
PLoS BiologyGrasping the Intentions of Others with One's Own Mirror Neuron System
2,007 Citations2005Marco Iacoboni, Istvan Molnar-Szakacs +4 more
Functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed that premotor mirror neuron areas—areas active during the execution and the observation of an action—previously thought to be involved only in action recognition are actually also involved in understanding the intentions of others.
The MIT Press eBooksComputation and Cognition
1,995 Citations1984Zenon W. Pylyshyn
This interpretation is supported by Pylyshyn's denial that explanation in the natural sciences is simply causal in nature, and by several pregnant passages in which he tries to drive a wedge between the causal and semantic realms of cognition.
Cerebral CortexAction Observation and Acquired Motor Skills: An fMRI Study with Expert Dancers
1,973 Citations2004Beatriz Calvo‐Merino, Daniel E. Glaser +3 more
The results show that this 'mirror system' integrates observed actions of others with an individual's personal motor repertoire, and suggest that the human brain understands actions by motor simulation.
ScienceHearing Sounds, Understanding Actions: Action Representation in Mirror Neurons
1,799 Citations2002E. Kohler, Christian Keysers +4 more
This work found neurons in monkey premotor cortex that discharge when the animal performs a specific action and when it hears the related sound, and this discovery in the monkey homolog of Broca's area might shed light on the origin of language.
Nature reviews. NeuroscienceBrain mechanisms linking language and action
1,775 Citations2005Friedemann Pulvermüller
European Journal of NeuroscienceAction observation activates premotor and parietal areas in a somatotopic manner: an fMRI study
1,670 Citations2001Giovanni Buccino, Ferdinand Binkofski +8 more
The previous concept of an action observation/execution matching system (mirror system) into a broader perspective is brought into a broader perspective: this system is not restricted to the ventral premotor cortex, but involves several somatotopically organized motor circuits.
Annual Review of NeuroscienceFunctional MRI of Language: New Approaches to Understanding the Cortical Organization of Semantic Processing
1,459 Citations2002Susan Y. Bookheimer
Three lines of fMRI research into how the semantic system is organized in the adult brain are discussed, which broaden the understanding of how the brain stores, retrieves, and makes sense of semantic information and challenge some commonly held notions of functional modularity in the language system.
CognitionThe faculty of language: what's special about it?
1,395 Citations2005Steven Pinker, Ray Jackendoff
The approach is sufficiently problematic that it cannot be used to support claims about evolution and related arguments that language is not an adaptation, namely that it is "perfect," non-redundant, unusable in any partial form, and badly designed for communication.
Behavioral and Brain SciencesWords in the brain's language
1,274 Citations1999Friedemann Pulverm uuml ller
Journal of Cognitive NeuroscienceListening to Action-related Sentences Activates Fronto-parietal Motor Circuits
1,240 Citations2005Marco Tettamanti, Giovanni Buccino +8 more
The results showed that listening to action-related sentences activates a left fronto-parieto-temporal network that includes the pars opercularis of the inferior frontal gyrus (Broca's area), as well as the inferior parietal lobule, the intraparietal sulcus, and the posterior middle temporal gyrus.
PsychopathologyThe Roots of Empathy: The Shared Manifold Hypothesis and the Neural Basis of Intersubjectivity
1,222 Citations2003Vittorio Gallese
It will be argued that the same neural structures that are involved in processing and controlling executed actions, felt sensations and emotions are also active when the same actions are to be detected in others, enabling the authors' rich and diversified intersubjective experiences.
NeuronI Know What You Are Doing
1,192 Citations2001Maria Alessandra Umiltà, E. Kohler +5 more
The present findings support the hypothesis that mirror neuron activation could be at the basis of action recognition and imply that the motor representation of an action performed by others can be internally generated in the observer's premotor cortex, even when a visual description of the action is lacking.
Behavioral and Brain SciencesFrom monkey-like action recognition to human language: An evolutionary framework for neurolinguistics
1,163 Citations2005Michael A. Arbib
It is argued that the progression from protosign and protospeech to languages with full-blown syntax and compositional semantics was a historical phenomenon in the development of Homo sapiens, involving few if any further biological changes.
Artificial IntelligenceOn computation and cognition: Toward a foundation of cognitive science
1,137 Citations1989Zenon W. Pylyshyn
Psychological ScienceGesture Paves the Way for Language Development
1,072 Citations2005Jana M. Iverson, Susan Goldin‐Meadow
Examination of children making the transition from single words to two-word combinations found that gesture had a tight relation to the children's lexical and syntactic development.
Trends in Cognitive SciencesHuman-like social skills in dogs?
944 Citations2005Brian Hare, Michael Tomasello
The study of convergent evolution provides an exciting opportunity to gain further insights into the evolutionary processes leading to human-like forms of cooperation and communication.
NeuronNeural Circuits Underlying Imitation Learning of Hand Actions
899 Citations2004Giovanni Buccino, Stefan Vogt +5 more
The results showed that the basic circuit underlying imitation learning consists of the inferior parietal lobule and the posterior part of the superior frontal gyrus plus the adjacent premotor cortex (mirror neuron circuit), plus structures involved in motor preparation (dorsal prem motor cortex, superior parietal lobe, rostral mesial areas).
Phenomenology and the Cognitive SciencesEmbodied simulation: From neurons to phenomenal experience
899 Citations2005Vittorio Gallese
Behavioral and Brain SciencesLanguage, tools and brain: The ontogeny and phylogeny of hierarchically organized sequential behavior
892 Citations1991Patricia M. Greenfield
Chimpanzees have an identical constraint on hierarchical complexity in both tool use and symbol combination, which matches that of the two-year-old child who has not yet developed the neural circuits for complex grammar and complex manual combination of objects.
Nature NeuroscienceListening to speech activates motor areas involved in speech production
891 Citations2004Stephen M. Wilson, Ayşe Pınar Saygın +2 more
The findings of this fMRI study support the view that the motor system is recruited in mapping acoustic inputs to a phonetic code.
European Journal of NeuroscienceSpeech listening specifically modulates the excitability of tongue muscles: a TMS study
858 Citations2002Luciano Fadiga, Laila Craighero +2 more
It is demonstrated that, during speech listening, there is an increase of motor‐evoked potentials recorded from the listeners' tongue muscles when the presented words strongly involve, when pronounced, tongue movements.
Journal of Cognitive NeuroscienceNeural Circuits Involved in the Recognition of Actions Performed by Nonconspecifics: An fMRI Study
758 Citations2004Giovanni Buccino, Fausta Lui +6 more
Assessment of cortical areas active during the observation of mouth actions performed by humans and by individuals belonging to other species suggests that actions made by other individuals may be recognized through different mechanisms.
Journal of Memory and LanguageSymbol Grounding and Meaning: A Comparison of High-Dimensional and Embodied Theories of Meaning
758 Citations2000Arthur M. Glenberg, David A. Robertson
The 'shared manifold' hypothesis: From mirror neurons to empathy
740 Citations2001Vittorio Gallese
European Journal of NeuroscienceMirror neurons responding to the observation of ingestive and communicative mouth actions in the monkey ventral premotor cortex
735 Citations2003Pier Francesco Ferrari, Vittorio Gallese +2 more
Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesThe brain differentiates human and non-human grammars: Functional localization and structural connectivity
710 Citations2006Angela D. Friederici, Jörg Bahlmann +3 more
Cognitive Brain ResearchListening to action-related sentences modulates the activity of the motor system: A combined TMS and behavioral study
705 Citations2005Giovanni Buccino, Lucia Riggio +4 more
The present data show that processing verbally presented actions activates different sectors of the motor system, depending on the effector used in the listened-to action.
ScienceThe Space Around Us
700 Citations1997Giacomo Rizzolatti, Luciano Fadiga +2 more
This issue on page 239 of the Perspective shows that neurons code for pieces of the authors' environment that are not identified by their absolute position in space, but rather by their position in relation to the body.
Trends in Cognitive SciencesThe role of gesture in communication and thinking
683 Citations1999Susan Goldin‐Meadow, Susan Goldin-Meadow
In this review, gesture is examined when it stands on its own, substituting for speech and clearly serving a communicative function, and when produced along with speech, which suggests these are not mutually exclusive functions.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological SciencesThe manifold nature of interpersonal relations: the quest for a common mechanism
680 Citations2003Vittorio Gallese
Recent neurophysiological and brain imaging data on monkeys and humans are discussed, showing that the 'like me' analogy may rest upon a series of 'mirror-matching' mechanisms.
ScienceComputational Constraints on Syntactic Processing in a Nonhuman Primate
663 Citations2004W. Tecumseh Fitch, Marc D. Hauser
Monkeys tested with the same methods, syllables, and sequence lengths were unable to master a grammar at this higher, “phrase structure grammar” level, but it is demonstrated that monkeys can spontaneously master such grammars.
Memory & CognitionFictive motion as cognitive simulation
590 Citations2004Teenie Matlock
The results suggest that the processing of fictive motion includes mental simulation, and that latencies were shorter after participants read about fast travel, short distances, and easy terrains.
NeuropsychologiaSeeing and hearing speech excites the motor system involved in speech production
585 Citations2003Kate E. Watkins, Antonio P. Strafella +1 more
Evidence is provided that both auditory and visual speech perception facilitate the excitability of the motor system involved in speech production.
Brain and LanguageEmbodied meaning in a neural theory of language
499 Citations2003Jerome A. Feldman, Srinivas Narayanan
Brain ResearchIntentional attunement: A neurophysiological perspective on social cognition and its disruption in autism
477 Citations2006Vittorio Gallese
A defective intentional attunement caused by a lack of embodies simulation might cause some of the social impairments of autistic individuals.
Nature NeuroscienceBroca's area and the language instinct
471 Citations2003Mariacristina Musso, Andrea Moro +5 more
Increase of activation over time in Broca's area was specific for 'real' language acquisition only, independent of the kind of language.
Trends in Cognitive SciencesThe motor theory of social cognition: a critique
446 Citations2004Pierre Jacob, Marc Jeannerod
Human Brain MappingNeurophysiological distinction of action words in the fronto‐central cortex
367 Citations2004Olaf Hauk, Friedman Pulvermüller
The findings are interpreted in the framework of a neurobiological model of language and the possible role of mirror neurons in the premotor cortex in language processing is discussed.
Cognitive Brain ResearchOn beyond mirror neurons: Internal representations subserving imitation and recognition of skilled object-related actions in humans
337 Citations2005Laurel J. Buxbaum, Kathleen M. Kyle +1 more
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral ReviewsFrom manual gesture to speech: A gradual transition
324 Citations2006M. Gentilucci, Michael C. Corballis
Evidence that the transition from primarily manual to primarily vocal language was a gradual process is reviewed, and is best understood if it is supposed that speech itself a gestural system rather than an acoustic system, an idea captured by the motor theory of speech perception and articulatory phonology.
PhysiologyBroca’s Region: From Action to Language
320 Citations2005Nobuyuki Nishitani, Martin Schürmann +2 more
Broca's region, classically considered a motor speech-production area, is involved in action understanding and imitation and it also seems to help in sequencing of actions.
Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and CognitionActions and Affordances in Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution.
312 Citations2004Craig G. Chambers, Michael K. Tanenhaus +1 more
The findings indicate that syntactic decisions are guided by the listener's situation-specific evaluation of how to achieve the behavioral goal of an utterance.
Journal of Cognitive NeuroscienceModulation of Motor Excitability during Speech Perception: The Role of Broca's Area
267 Citations2004Kate E. Watkins, Tomáš Paus
The results show that during auditory speech perception, there is increased excitability of motor system underlying speech production and that this increase is significantly correlated with activity in the posterior part of the left inferior frontal gyrus (Broca's area), which is proposed to primes the motor system in response to heard speech even when no speech output is required.
NeuropsychologiaSpeech and gesture share the same communication system
255 Citations2005Paolo Bernardis, Maurizio Gentilucci
The results suggest that spoken word and symbolic gesture are coded as single signal by a unique communication system that represents the intention to engage a closer interaction with a hypothetical interlocutor and it may have a meaning different from when word and gesture are encoded singly.
Memory & CognitionPutting words in perspective
252 Citations2004Anna M. Borghi, Arthur M. Glenberg +1 more
The results provide a strong link between concept knowledge and situated action.
Journal of NeuroscienceSequences of Abstract Nonbiological Stimuli Share Ventral Premotor Cortex with Action Observation and Imagery
201 Citations2004Ricarda I. Schubotz, D. Yves von Cramon
Findings point to a basic premotor contribution to the representation or processing of sequentially structured events, supplemented by different sets of areas in the context of either biological or nonbiological cues.
NeuroreportFunctional lateralization of speech production at primary motor cortex
175 Citations1996Dirk Wildgruber, Hermann Ackermann +3 more
Functional lateralization of speech production seems to include the precentral gyrus as well as Broca's area in Rolandic cortex.
ScienceCognitive Imitation in Rhesus Macaques
171 Citations2004Francys Subiaul, Jessica F. Cantlon +2 more
A type of observational learning in which a student copies a cognitive rule rather than a specific motor action is described, which learns new sequences more rapidly after observing an expert execute those sequences than when they had to learn new sequences entirely by trial and error.
Journal of NeurophysiologyGrasp With Hand and Mouth: A Kinematic Study on Healthy Subjects
168 Citations2001Maurizio Gentilucci, Francesca Benuzzi +2 more
It is speculated that the circuits involved in double grasp preparation might have been the neural substrate where hand motor patterns used as primitive communication signs were transferred to mouth articulation system.
Trends in Cognitive SciencesProcessing local transitions versus long-distance syntactic hierarchies
148 Citations2004Angela D. Friederici
It is reported that finite-state grammars can be learned by non-human primates, whereas phrase-structure Grammars cannot, and the question arises as to whether the distinction between these two types of grammARS finds its reflection in different neural systems within the human brain.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological SciencesA neuroscientific grasp of concepts: from control to representation
145 Citations2003Vittorio Gallese
It is proposed that conceptual representations can be conceived as the expression of a coherent internal world model and decomposes the 'outer' space inhabited by things in a meaningful way only to the extent that it accords to biologically constrained, embodied invariance.
ScienceA Cellular Framework for Gut-Looping Morphogenesis in Zebrafish
142 Citations2003Sally Horne‐Badovinac, Michael R. Rebagliati +1 more
Evidence that the looping of the zebrafish gut results from the asymmetric migration of the neighboring lateral plate mesoderm is provided, and reducing left-sided Nodal activity randomizes the pattern of LPM migration and gut looping reveals a cellular framework for the regulation of organ laterality by asymmetrically expressed genes.
NeuroreportNeurophysiological distinction of verb categories
129 Citations2000Friedemann Pulvermüller, Markus Härle +1 more
There is evidence that brain mechanisms involved in word processing can differ even between fine-grained lexico-semantic subcategories and already within the first quarter of a second after word onset.
NeuroImageNeural Correlates for the Acquisition of Natural Language Syntax
127 Citations2002Marco Tettamanti, Hatem Alkadhi +4 more
Developmental ScienceWhy early linguistic milestones are delayed in children with Williams syndrome: late onset of hand banging as a possible rate–limiting constraint on the emergence of canonical babbling
112 Citations2001Nobuo Masataka
NeuroImageSpatiotemporal dynamics of neural language processing: an MEG study using minimum-norm current estimates
111 Citations2003Friedemann Pulvermüller, Yury Shtyrov +1 more
By providing answers to the where- and when-questions of cortical activation, MEG recordings paired with current estimates of the underlying cortical sources may advance the understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics of distributed neuronal networks involved in cognitive processing in the human brain.
Journal of Cognitive NeuroscienceCovert Speech Arrest Induced by rTMS over Both Motor and Nonmotor Left Hemisphere Frontal Sites
92 Citations2005Lisa Aziz‐Zadeh, Luigi Cattaneo +2 more
Results show that rTMS can induce a covert SA when applied to areas over the brain that are pertinent to language, and both the left posterior/motor site and the left anterior/IFG site appear to be essential to language elaboration even when motor output is not required.
European Journal of NeuroscienceGrasp observation influences speech production
89 Citations2003Maurizio Gentilucci
Journal of Cognitive NeuroscienceRepetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of Broca's Area Affects Verbal Responses to Gesture Observation
79 Citations2006Maurizio Gentilucci, Paolo Bernardis +2 more
It is proposed that Broca's area is involved in the process of translating into speech aspects concerning the social intention coded by the gesture, to support the theory that spoken language as evolved from an ancient communication system using arm gestures.
Biology LettersMacaques (<i>Macaca nemestrina</i>) recognize when they are being imitated
76 Citations2005Annika Paukner, James R. Anderson +3 more
It is argued that the ability to match actions could be based on both visual–visual and kinaesthetic–visual matching skills, and that mirror neurons, which have both visual and motor properties, could serve as a neural basis for recognizing imitation.
Behavioural Brain ResearchThe observation and hearing of eating actions activates motor programs related to eating in macaque monkeys
70 Citations2005Pier Francesco Ferrari, C. Maiolini +3 more
It is proposed that eating facilitation triggered by observation or listening of eating actions can rely on the mirror neuron system of ventral premotor cortex that provides a matching between the observed/listened action and the executed action.
Trends in Cognitive SciencesFOXP2 and the mirror system
64 Citations2004Michael C. Corballis
An inherited deficit in spoken language has been associated with a mutation in the forkhead box P2 gene on chromosome 7, and a recent functional magnetic resonance imaging study has linked the deficit to underactivity in Broca's area during word generation, which suggests a possible link between FOXP2 and the mirror-neuron system observed in the primate homologue of Broca’s area.
European Journal of NeuroscienceExecution and observation of bringing a fruit to the mouth affect syllable pronunciation
63 Citations2004Maurizio Gentilucci, Paola Santunione +2 more
The results of the present study suggest that the execution and observation of the bringing‐to‐the‐mouth action activate a mouth articulation posture (probably due to the act of food manipulation with the mouth) which selectively influences speech production.
Pavlovian Journal of Biological SciencePatterns of covert speech behavior and phonetic coding
61 Citations1989F. J. McGuigan, Andrew B. Dollins
It is concluded that the speech musculature covertly responds systematically as a function of class of phoneme being processed, which accord with the model that semantic processing (“understanding”) occurs when the speech (and other) musculatures interacts with linguistic regions of the brain.
NeuropsychologiaAction observation and speech production: study on children and adults
52 Citations2004Maurizio Gentilucci, Silvia Stefanini +2 more
The hypothesis that action observation induces in the viewer action recognition and activation of the successive mouth act may have been used by humans to transfer a primitive arm gesture communication system from the arm to the mouth and may be further used by children for speech learning.
…