Tinbergen on mirror neurons.
Fifty years ago, Niko Tinbergen defined the scope of behavioural biology with his four problems: causation, ontogeny, survival value and evolution. About 20 years ago, there was another highly significant development in behavioural biology-the discovery of mirror neurons (MNs). Here, I use Tinbergen's original four problems (rather than the list that appears in textbooks) to highlight the differences between two prominent accounts of MNs, the genetic and associative accounts; to suggest that the latter provides the defeasible 'best explanation' for current data on the causation and ontogeny of MNs; and to argue that functional analysis, of the kind that Tinbergen identified somewhat misleadingly with studies of 'survival value', should be a high priority for future research. In this kind of functional analysis, system-level theories would assign MNs a small, but potentially important, role in the achievement of action understanding-or another social cognitive function-by a production line of interacting component processes. These theories would be tested by experimental intervention in human and non-human animal samples with carefully documented and controlled developmental histories.
All Souls College and Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, , Oxford OX1 4AL, UK.
Cecilia
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Heyes
D000220:Adaptation, Biological / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D001519:Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005075:Biological Evolution; D048788:Growth and Development / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D059167:Mirror Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D008959:Models, Neurological
Tinbergen's four problems; associative learning; functional analysis; inference to the best explanation; mirror neuron; sensorimotor experience