Vittorio Gallese M.D. Professor of Physiology Dept. of
NeuroscienceUniversity of Parma Italy From mirror neurons to
embodied simulation: A new perspective on intersubjectivity Our
seemingly effortless capacity to perceive the bodies inhabiting our
social world as goal-oriented individuals like us depends on
activity within a shared “we-centric” space. I have proposed that
this shared manifold space can be characterized at the functional
level as embodied simulation a basic functional mechanism by which
our brain/body system models its interactions with the world. The
mirroring mechanism for action and other mirroring mechanisms in
our brain represent sub-personal instantiations of embodied
simulation. Embodied simulation provides a new empirically based
notion of intersubjectivity viewed first and foremost as
intercorporeity. Embodied simulation challenges the notion that
Folk-psychology is the sole account of interpersonal understanding.
Underlying our capacity for “mind reading” is intercorporeity as
the main source of knowledge we directly gather about others.
Parallel to the detached third-person sensory perception of social
stimuli internal non-linguistic “representations” of the
body-states associated with actions emotions and sensations are
evoked in the observer as if he or she were performing a similar
action or experiencing a similar emotion or sensation. By means of
an isomorphic format we can map others’ actions onto our own motor
representations as well as others’ emotions and sensations onto our
own viscero-motor and ***tosensory representations. Social
cognition is not only explicitly reasoning about the contents of
someone else’s mind. Our brains and those of other primates appear
to have developed embodied simulation as a basic functional
mechanism that gives us a direct insight of other minds thus
enabling our capacity to empathize with others. This proposal opens
new perspectives on our understanding of psychopatholog