title: What is so special about embodied simulation?
abstract: Simulation theories of social cognition abound in the literature, but it is often unclear what simulation means and how it works. The discovery of mirror neurons, responding both to action execution and observation, suggested an embodied approach to mental simulation. Over the past few years this approach has been hotly debated and alternative accounts have been proposed. We discuss these accounts and argue that they fail to capture the uniqueness of embodied simulation (ES). ES theory provides a unitary account of basic social cognition, demonstrating that people reuse their own mental states or processes represented with a bodily format in functionally attributing them to others.
authors: Department of Neuroscience, University of Parma, Parma, Italy. vittorio.gallese@unipr.it
authors: Vittorio
authors: V
authors: Gallese
authors: Corrado
authors: C
authors: Sinigaglia
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D059167:Mirror Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D008960:Models, Psychological; D012919:Social Behavior