Consciousness and the Social Brain

expert system in social perception, and brain areas TPJ and STS seem to be crucial nodes in that computation. But how does the attention schema theory relate to the simulation view of social perception? Since it is compatible with the expert system view, is it therefore necessarily incompatible with the simulation view?
    In this chapter I argue that, actually, the attention schema theory is compatible with both of the rival views—the expert system view and the simulation view of social perception. Moreover, I suggest that these two rival views of social perception shouldn’t be rivals, that they are compatible with each other, and that the brain probably uses both methods in a hybrid system to make us socially capable beings. That hybrid system may solve some of the difficulties of each approach by itself.
Mirror Neurons

    The experimental heart of simulation theory is the phenomenon of mirror neurons. Rizzolatti and colleagues first discovered mirror neurons in the premotor cortex of macaque monkeys. 1 – 3
    The experimenters were studying a region of cortex involved in controlling the hand during grasping. Neurons in this brain area became active during particular, complex types of grasp. For example, one neuron might become active when the monkey reached out to pick up a raisin using a precision grip between the thumb and forefinger. Another neuron might become active during a power grip that required the whole hand. In the course of studying these motor neurons, the experimenters made an unexpected discovery. Sometimes the experimenter grasped an object in front of the monkey in order to move it into or out of reach. Strangely, some of the monkey’s own motor neurons became active at the sight of the experimenter’s grasp. The mirror neurons, as they came to be called, had both motor and sensory properties. They responded regardless of whether the monkey performed or saw a particular action.
    Mirror-like properties were then reported in the human cortex. Volunteers were placed in an MRI scanner and either performed a hand action or watched a hand action. A specific set of areas in the cortex became active in both conditions. 4 – 6 Humans and monkeys seemed to have a similar mirror-neuron network, spanning areas of the parietal lobe, the premotor cortex, and the STS. 7
    The hypothesized role of mirror neurons is to aid in understanding the actions of others. In that hypothesis, we understand someone else’s hand actions by activating our own hand-control machinery and in that way covertly simulating the actions. The mirror-neuron hypothesis is in some ways an elaboration of Liberman’s older and, alas, rarely credited hypothesis about speech comprehension. 8 In that hypothesis, we understand someone else’s speech sounds by using our own motor machinery to mimic the same sounds in a subtle, subvocal manner.
    Mirror neurons have been studied almost exclusively in the context of hand actions—performing them and perceiving them. Consequently, the “mirror-neuron network” is suspiciously similar to the network of brain areas involved in planning hand actions. This limitation is probably a mistake, and the idea of mirror neurons residing in a limited network is also probably a mistake. The concept of mirroring can in principle be generalized beyond the perception of other people’s hand actions to all social perception and to a great variety of brain areas.
    When you see someone getting hit in the face with a baseball, you tend to cringe sympathetically. Are your mirror neurons generating the same facial action you would make if you were hit? When you watch a boxing match you tend to make subtle punching movements. When you see someone else smile you are more likely to smile. Even beyond simple actions, you may understand the pain of someone else’s stubbed toe by using your own somatosensory system to imagine the pain. You may understand someone else’s joy, complete with nuances and psychological implications, by using your own emotional machinery to simulate that joy. You may understand someoneelse’s intellectual point of view by activating a version of that point of view in your own brain. You may understand other minds in general by simulating them using the same machinery within your own brain. The entire brain may be a simulator of other brains. In this way we could, according to simulation theory, gain insight into others by putting ourselves in other people’s shoes.
Difficulties with the