...context of social interactions, it is of interest to study the neural encoding of high-level social features, such as the emotional states or intention of another individuals. (Brothers, Ring, & Kling, 1990, p. 199) Perceiving Other People’s Actions and Motor Resonance Humans are adapted to living in social groups with complex patterns of social interactions. Understanding the meaning of other people’s behavior is an essential aspect of human communication, and a large amount of our daily life is spent watching and interpreting the actions of others (Barresi & Moore, 1996). The neural mechanism underlying our ability to represent others’ goals by the mere observation of their motor actions has been the target of considerable research. Behavioral experiments had suggested that the system for generating and representing actions is also used in the perception of actions (Knoblich & Prinz, 2001). This approach was strengthened by the discovery of “mirror” neurons in the macaque monkey brain, a class of neurons found in the parietal and the premotor cortex. They were seen to discharge not only when the monkey performed an action but also when the monkey was observing an experimenter or another monkey performing the same action (di Pellegrino, Fadiga, Fogassi, Gallese, & Rizzolatti, 1992). Similarly, neuroimaging studies in humans have revealed parietal (PAR) and premotor (PM) activations both during execution and action observation, suggesting that action observation...
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