Yet, patients with severe paralysis or speech production issues (like Broca’s aphasia) can still perfectly understand the actions and speech of others. The "mirror" was broken, but the understanding remained. 🐒 The Monkey vs. The Human
But as Hickok dug into the data for his book, The Myth of Mirror Neurons , he found a different story. 🧠 The Broken Link The Myth of Mirror Neurons: The Real Neuroscien...
Gregory Hickok, a linguistics professor at UC Irvine, spent years watching the world fall in love with "mirror neurons." Yet, patients with severe paralysis or speech production
📍 The "mirror neuron" theory was a beautiful, simple answer to how we connect. Hickok’s work serves as a reminder that the human brain is rarely that simple. The Human But as Hickok dug into the
Hickok noticed a major flaw in the hype. If mirror neurons were necessary for understanding actions, then people with damaged motor systems shouldn't be able to understand what they see.
The motor system helps us predict or refine that understanding.
Hickok pointed out that while macaques have these neurons, they don't have human-level empathy or language. Have mirror neurons but don't imitate well.