Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - 2008 - Volume 31, Issue 01  

Open Peer Commentary

Flexibility and development of mirroring mechanisms

Matthew R. Longoa1 and Bennett I. Bertenthala2

a1 Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Department of Psychology, University College London, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom

a2 Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405. m.longo@ucl.ac.uk bbertent@indiana.edu http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucjtml0/

Abstract

The empirical support for the shared circuits model (SCM) is mixed. We review recent results from our own lab and others supporting a central claim of SCM that mirroring occurs at multiple levels of representation. By contrast, the model is silent as to why human infants are capable of showing imitative behaviours mediated by a mirror system. This limitation is a problem with formal models that address neither the neural correlates nor the behavioural evidence directly.

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