Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF, UK.
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK; MRC Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF, UK.
Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2019 Oct;105:106-114. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.08.002. Epub 2019 Aug 5.
The term 'action understanding' has been defined in several ways since it was first proposed to describe the psychological process subserved by mirror neurons. Here we outline and critique these definitions of 'action understanding' in order to evaluate the claim that mirror neurons perform such a process. We delineate three distinct definitions of 'action understanding', each involving a distinct psychological process. Action identification comprises using the specific configurations of body parts in observed actions to identify those actions, whereas goal identification and intention identification involve generalising across different observed actions to identify the immediate goal of, or the hidden mental state motivating, the actions. This paper discusses the benefits and drawbacks of using these definitions to describe the process purportedly performed by mirror neurons. We then examine each definition in relation to the mirror neuron literature. We conclude that although there is some evidence consistent with the suggestion that mirror neurons contribute to action identification, there is little evidence to support the claim that they contribute to goal or intention identification.
自首次提出描述由镜像神经元支持的心理过程以来，“动作理解”一词已经有多种定义。在这里，我们概述并批评这些“动作理解”的定义，以评估镜像神经元是否执行了这样的过程。我们划定了“动作理解”的三个不同定义，每个定义都涉及到一个不同的心理过程。动作识别包括使用观察到的动作中身体部位的特定配置来识别这些动作，而目标识别和意图识别则涉及跨不同观察到的动作进行概括，以识别动作的直接目标或驱动动作的隐藏心理状态。本文讨论了使用这些定义来描述据称由镜像神经元执行的过程的优缺点。然后，我们根据镜像神经元文献来检查每个定义。我们的结论是，尽管有一些证据表明镜像神经元有助于动作识别，但几乎没有证据支持它们有助于目标或意图识别的说法。
