Rizzolatti Giacomo, Craighero Laila
Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisiologia, via Volturno, 3, Universita di Parma 43100, Parma, Italy.
Annu Rev Neurosci. 2004;27:169-92. doi: 10.1146/annurev.neuro.27.070203.144230.
A category of stimuli of great importance for primates, humans in particular, is that formed by actions done by other individuals. If we want to survive, we must understand the actions of others. Furthermore, without action understanding, social organization is impossible. In the case of humans, there is another faculty that depends on the observation of others' actions: imitation learning. Unlike most species, we are able to learn by imitation, and this faculty is at the basis of human culture. In this review we present data on a neurophysiological mechanism--the mirror-neuron mechanism--that appears to play a fundamental role in both action understanding and imitation. We describe first the functional properties of mirror neurons in monkeys. We review next the characteristics of the mirror-neuron system in humans. We stress, in particular, those properties specific to the human mirror-neuron system that might explain the human capacity to learn by imitation. We conclude by discussing the relationship between the mirror-neuron system and language.
对灵长类动物，尤其是人类来说，一类极其重要的刺激是由其他个体做出的行为所构成的。如果我们想生存下去，就必须理解他人的行为。此外，没有对行为的理解，社会组织就不可能存在。就人类而言，还有另一种能力依赖于对他人行为的观察：模仿学习。与大多数物种不同，我们能够通过模仿来学习，而这种能力是人类文化的基础。在这篇综述中，我们展示了一种神经生理机制——镜像神经元机制——的数据，该机制似乎在行为理解和模仿中都起着基础性作用。我们首先描述猴子镜像神经元的功能特性。接下来我们综述人类镜像神经元系统的特征。我们特别强调人类镜像神经元系统的那些可能解释人类模仿学习能力的特性。最后我们讨论镜像神经元系统与语言之间的关系。
