abstract Antonia Hamilton

Antonia Hamilton (University of Nottingham, U.K.)

Beyond mirror neurons: brain systems for social responding

Research on comprehension of other people's actions has been dominated by the claim that a human mirror neuron system provides the basis for many nonverbal social behaviours. Here I go beyond mirror neurons to consider social interaction in a much broader context. By studying responsiveness to social cues in realistic contexts, we are able to understand how basic mirror neuron systems interact with other components of the social brain. In this talk, I will present a series of studies which examine (1) how and why people copy each other (2) what brain systems matter for social interaction and (3) which of these are abnormal in autism. These studies point towards a model in which social cues control and modulate the responses produced by a more basic visuo-motor stream.