Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.
Our built-in human system for mimicry explains why we humans can transfer our good and bad moods to each other - if we aren't careful!
One way to make a baby cry is to expose it to cries of other babies. There's sort of contagiousness to the crying. It's not just crying. We also know that if a baby sees another human in silent pain, it will distress the baby. It seems part of our very nature is to suffer at the suffering of others.
Here is a neuron that fires when I reach and grab something, but it also fires when I watch Joe reaching and grabbing something. ... It's as though this neuron is adopting the other person's point of view.
The human is indissolubly linked with imitation: a human being only becomes human at all by imitating other human beings.
Physical presence provides chemical, relational, psychological and physiological effects that virtual relationships cannot. Our brains change in the presence of another person and their behavior.
Neuroscience has proven that similar areas of the brain are activated both in the person who suffers and in the one who feels empathy. Thus, empathic suffering is a true experience of suffering.
The ability to sympathize with those around us seems crucial to our survival, and it's connected to the mirroring functions of the brain.
Man is an imitative creature.
What you react to in others, you strengthen in yourself.
I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.
