Spejlneuronsystemets rolle i spædbørns udvikling af handlingsforståelse

Abstract

The mirror neuron system (MNS) consists of fronto-parietal neurons active during both the execution and observation of actions. In the mirror neuron theory of action understanding, activation of the MNS facilitates an understanding of action goals. The aim of this bachelor thesis is to explore whether infants’ development of action understanding can be understood within this theoretical framework. I first review empirical findings on the emergence of the MNS and action understanding in infancy. Then, I derive two assumptions about action understanding from the direct-matching hypothesis, based on which I discuss empirical findings on infants’ developing action understanding. These findings are consistent with, but do not provide direct evidence for, the mirror neuron theory of action understanding. Meanwhile, alternative interpretations of the findings are possible due to methodological issues concerning the study of the MNS and action understanding in infants. For that reason, this thesis also considers explanations in terms of a conceptual knowledge theory, which emphasizes statistical learning in the development of action understanding. The overall empirical evidence suggests that the mirror neuron theory of action understanding offers one developmental approach to a wider system for action understanding. This wider system could involve both reasoning based on conceptual knowledge and MNS activation as a situational, individually developed strategy.

Bedømmelse: 12