Set 3 – Mirror neurons & Empathy

Mirror neurons

Neurons responding during an action and observation of a similar action.

Mirror neuron system

Action-observation network supporting motor resonance and matching action goals.

Motor resonance

Activation of one's motor representations when observing another person's movements.

Posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS)

Processes biological motion, such as movements of hands, faces, and limbs.

Anterior intraparietal sulcus (aIPS)

Processes body actions in context, including object or tool use.

Premotor cortex (PMC)

Helps represent goals and motor patterns of observed or performed actions.

Self–other movement discrimination in STS

Some neurons favor observed others' movement and are inhibited during own movement.

Van Overwalle: mirror system

Explains action matching and motor goals, not full inference of hidden beliefs.

Empathy

Understanding or sharing another person's emotional experience.

Cognitive empathy

Recognizing and understanding another person's feelings without necessarily sharing them.

Affective empathy

Experiencing emotional resonance with another person's feelings.

Empathic concern

Feeling care or compassion for another person's well-being.

Sensory empathy

Resonance with sensory features of another person's experience, such as pain.

Perception–action model

Observing others' states recruits one's own overlapping bodily and affective representations.

Self-to-other model

Understanding another's feelings partly through one's own emotional experience range.

Anterior insula (AI)

Region implicated in interoception and sharing affective aspects of pain and disgust.

Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)

Region involved in affective pain, conflict, and social-emotional processing.

Phillips et al. (1997)

Morphed disgust faces recruited insular responses as perceived disgust increased.

Singer pain-empathy experiment

Pain to self or partner engaged overlapping anterior insula and ACC-related regions.

AI–ACC network

Shared affective network also recruited by unfairness and immoral acts.