Franz Elizabeth A, Ford Shelley, Werner Simon
Action, Brain, and Cognition Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Otago University, Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Brain Res. 2007 May 11;1145:138-49. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2007.01.136. Epub 2007 Feb 9.
The relationship between mirror neuron systems and imitation is being widely studied. However, most if not all, studies on imitation have investigated only the mirror mode. The present study examined whether imitation in a mirror (specular) mode is likely to reflect similar or distinct neural processes and psychological principles as imitation in a non-mirror (anatomical) mode. Experiment 1 examined whether altering sensory information may reverse the typical mirror mode advantage, resulting in superior performance in the non-mirror mode. Experiment 2 examined whether the two different modes of imitation rely differentially on target selection (goals) and effector selection (means). Experiment 3 examined whether spatial translations are likely to occur in a typical non-mirror imitation mode. Experiment 4 examined whether non-mirror imitation would be the naturally selected mode of imitation under some situations. Findings from all experiments demonstrated marked differences between mirror and non-mirror modes of imitation. The implications of these findings may raise challenges for theories and models of mirror neurons.
镜像神经元系统与模仿之间的关系正在被广泛研究。然而，大多数（如果不是全部的话）关于模仿的研究仅考察了镜像模式。本研究探讨了镜像（镜面）模式下的模仿是否可能反映出与非镜像（解剖学）模式下的模仿相似或不同的神经过程及心理原理。实验1考察了改变感官信息是否会逆转典型的镜像模式优势，从而使非镜像模式表现更优。实验2考察了两种不同的模仿模式在目标选择（目的）和效应器选择（手段）上是否存在差异依赖。实验3考察了在典型的非镜像模仿模式中是否可能发生空间转换。实验4考察了在某些情况下非镜像模仿是否会成为自然选择的模仿模式。所有实验的结果都表明镜像和非镜像模仿模式之间存在显著差异。这些发现可能会给镜像神经元的理论和模型带来挑战。
