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Summary
Our social life rests to a large extent on our ability to understand the intentions of others. What are the bases of this ability? A very influential view is that we understand the intentions of others because we are able to represent them as having mental states. Without this meta-representational (mind-reading) ability their behavior would be meaningless to us. Over the past few years this view has been challenged by neurophysiological findings and, in particular, by the discovery of mirror neurons. The functional properties of these neurons indicate that intentional understanding is based primarily on a mechanism that directly matches the sensory representation of the observed actions with one's own motor representation of those same actions. These findings reveal how deeply motor and intentional components of action are intertwined, suggesting that both can be fully comprehended only starting from a motor approach to intentionality.
KEY WORDS: action understanding, mind-reading, mirror neurons, motor intentionality.
Introduction
The actions of conspecifics are among the most important stimuli for many species of animals and for humans. Although the actions of other people very frequently convey information not sent intentionally to the observer, we are nevertheless able to understand what they are doing and why they are doing it.
What mechanism underlies this capacity? How is it that we are able to understand the actions of others not as bodily movements but as intentional actions?
A philosophically and psychologically influential view suggests that in order to understand the intentional behavior of others we have to attribute them with "propositional attitudes", i.e. mental states such as beliefs, desires, intentions etc., that drive that behavior, and make it comprehensible and even predictable. According to this hypothesis, our capacity to understand the actions of others is therefore rooted in our ability to mentalize, or to read their minds, in other words to represent them as having mental states. Without this meta-representational ability, the actions of others could not have any intentional meaning for us and this would prevent us from interacting with our peers and performing adequately in even the simplest social situations.
Over the past few years, however, this view has been challenged by neurophysiological studies on the functional properties of the cortical motor system. These studies and the...