Audiovisual mirror neurons and action recognition.
Many object-related actions can be recognized both by their sound and by their vision. Here we describe a population of neurons in the ventral premotor cortex of the monkey that discharge both when the animal performs a specific action and when it hears or sees the same action performed by another individual. These 'audiovisual mirror neurons' therefore represent actions independently of whether these actions are performed, heard or seen. The magnitude of auditory and visual responses did not differ significantly in half the neurons. A neurometric analysis revealed that based on the response of these neurons, two actions could be discriminated with 97% accuracy.
Keysers
C
C
Department of Neuroscience, Università di Parma, Via Volturno 39, 43100 Parma, Italy. keysers@unipr.it
Kohler
E
E
Umiltà
M A
MA
Nanetti
L
L
Fogassi
L
L
Gallese
V
V
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D008254:Macaca nemestrina / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012372:ROC Curve; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*