Lesson 1 – Empathy’s Hard-Wired Components

Empathy’s Hard-Wired Components

VIDEO REVIEW

Humans are born with a hard-wired capacity for a basic form of empathy.

1. Neuroscience brain-mapping research on Macaque monkeys led to the discovery of the “Mirror Neuron” in the pre-motor cortex. (The pre-motor cortex maps out all actions, before the motor cortex sends instructions to complete the anticipated action to the motor cortex.)
2. The startling discovery was of a special set of neurons in the observing monkey’s brain that were mirroring what was happening in the other animal’s brain “as if” the observer was about to complete the same goal directed action (eat or drink) that it was observing.
3. Researchers discovered that humans have Mirror Neurons in every major area of our brain and are so numerous they are referred to as “Mirror Neuron Systems.”
4. The function of mirror neurons in humans goes beyond goal directed actions, providing a hard-wired connection between our individual minds that helps us feel each other’s feelings and emotions kinesthetically in our body.
5. This “Embodied Simulation” experience helps humans experience the actions, emotions and intentions of others in your body, automatically, “as if” they are your own.
6. The human embodied simulation experience can lead to the “emotional contagion” phenomenon, exemplified by the “infant distress crying syndrome,” as well as “facial mimicry” in infants as research led by Michael Gazzaniga identified.
7. Research concludes that mirror neurons and embodied simulation underpin automatic mimicry and emotional contagion, giving us the ability to feel each other’s feelings “as if” they are our own, and can thus be considered the fundamental hard-wired component of empathy.
8. Research from the neuro and cognitive sciences concludes that an embodied understanding of the other’s experience is primary to cognitive understanding, and therefore plays a fundamental role in informing all aspects of human interaction. However, the hard-wired mirroring mechanism does not preclude the existence of more cognitively driven brain processes involved in analyzing and understanding the intentional acts of others, rather it provides kinesthetic information, making cognitive processes more effective.