Our brains contain special cells called mirror neurons that simulate the actions of others (see page 168 in book). Often, the leads to people copying, or mimicking, each other’s actions. Check out this page for more information and examples

Your job is to get someone to mimic your actions without them noticing and report the result. Describe what you did, and if they eventually repeated the same action. For example: yawning, smiling, crossing legs in one direction, blinking a lot, etc. etc. Be sure to describe this mimicry in terms of mirror neurons. The finished worksheet should be no longer than 2 pages including these instructions.

Describe in detail what action you performed in front of someone- did they repe”at your action?

Describe how mirror neurons played a role in this mimicry. If your experiment did not work, why do you think it did not work?

Action and perception

Describe in detail what action you performed in front of someone – did they repeat your action?

The action I performed in front of other people was when I ran after I noticed that I was going to be attacked by my colleague we had a quarrel with the previous evening. He was a very huge man and when I spotted him from a distance, I decided to escape the humiliation. My colleagues were surprised and in a second, everyone was on his heels. They even did not understand why I was running but because of the feeling that may be something was going wrong, they also took to their heels.

Describe how mirror neurons played a role in this mimicry. If your “experiment” did not work, why do you think it did not work?

 In this mimicry, mirror neurons worked because these colleagues observed as I ran and they also decided to run in their own direction. Through the mirror neurons, these colleagues had to imitate my behavior and in this case, it is a demonstration that people understand the actions as well as the intentions of other people.  As I ran, what clicked in their minds was the fact that there was something wrong and therefore, they need to flee the scene to avoid the same. Therefore, they took it upon themselves by taking up my behaviors as their own.  My running was not intended or did not concern them as they did not know the intentions but they still ran as if they understood what I was going through. Therefore, this experiment worked for me and I came to understand and to believe that indeed this neurons work in this manner.

Reference

Carey. B. (2008). You remind me of you