文献类型：期刊文献

中文题名：镜像神经元是认知科学的“圣杯”吗?

英文题名：Are Mirror Neurons the “Holy Grail” of Cognitive Science?

作者：陈巍[1,2];汪寅[3]

机构：[1]绍兴文理学院心理学系;[2]浙江大学语言与认知研究中心;[3]纽约大学心理学院

年份：2015

卷号：38

期号：1

起止页码：237

中文期刊名：心理科学

外文期刊名：Journal of Psychological Science

收录：CSTPCD、、国家哲学社会科学学术期刊数据库、北大核心2014、CSCD2015_2016、CSSCI2014_2016、北大核心、社科基金资助期刊、CSCD、CSSCI

基金：国家社科基金重大项目(11&ZD187);中国博士后科学基金特别资助项目(2014T70578);浙江省高校重大人文社科攻关计划项目(2013QN003)的资助

语种：中文

中文关键词：镜像神经元;动作理解;动作模仿;共情;读心;模块论

外文关键词：mirror neurons, action understanding, action imitation, empathy, mindreading, modularity

中文摘要：镜像神经元作为近二十年来神经科学领域内最重要的发现之一,相关的一系列研究掀起了一场"理解社会行为的革命"。然而,通过系统考察镜像神经元最初的操作性定义、基本功能及其实验证据,发现许多研究者对于镜像神经元的定义存在误解,人类脑中是否存在镜像神经元及其功能依然是当前学术界的争议焦点。迄今仍然缺乏令人信服的证据表明镜像神经元(或系统)就是动作理解、动作模仿、共情以及读心的直接神经机制。因此,将镜像神经元视为"认知科学的圣杯"的主张是一种落后的模块论意识形态,只能催生新的"神经神话"。

外文摘要：The discovery of mirror neurons in the 1990s has led to excitement in the cognitive neuroscience. Mirror neurons have received a great deal of attention from specialists both in the scientific field and public media. More and more abilities have been attributed to these neurons; they are even hailed for what they ＂do for psychology as DNA did for biology＂. And a series of related studies have given rise to ＂a revolution in understanding social behaviors＂. Mirror neurons have been implicated in a wide variety of functions, such as action-understanding, imitation, empathy, theory of mind, language evolution, telepathy, self-awareness, substance use disorders. Mirror neurons are viewed as the ＂holy grail＂ of cognitive science. The assumption that mirror neurons play a key role in social cognition is not without controversy, however. This review shows that the current data about mirror neurons are very mixed and that those studies that use weakly localized measures to examine the functions of the mirror neuron （system） are hard to interpret. Firstly, some theorists misuse and abuse the operational definition of mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are a class of visuomotor neurons activated by both the execution and the passive observation of object-related actions. Ceils having this property were only found in macaques within the premotor cortex （area F5）, and in the rostral part of the inferior parietal cortex （PF）. Secondly, the idea that mirror neurons exist in human beings remains controversial, although the human homolog of the inferior frontal gyms （IFG） and the inferior parietal lobule （IPL） can be seen as a classic human mirror neuron system. We systematically review the empirical foundations of the mirror neuron research; it turns out that unless one can manage to evade all the ethical, technical, and procedural limitations imposed on human brain research, no complementary research can be carried out to demonstrate the existence of mirror neurons in the human brain convincingly with microelectrodes or any other technique operations at the neuronal level. Last but not the least, claiming the mirror mechanism plays a crucial role in understanding the behaviors of others does not imply that there are no other mechanisms involved in action understanding. Some of these mechanisms based on the social brain are basic and cannot be ignored, relying on the association between a given stimulus and its corresponding effect. The mirror neuron （system） and its mirror mechanisms cannot be used to account for empathy, imitation and mindreading or explain other social cognition phenomena. It is an outdated ideology as a modularity of mind. The future study for mirror neurons must attempt to answer the following questions. （1） How can an agent make a distinction between the intention of self-action and those of others？ And how can someone＇s mirror neuron （system） and other social brains cooperate in this processing？ （2） How can an agent make an understanding outcome prediction of an action？ It depends not only on the action itself, but also on the context in which the action is embedded.