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Grasping Mirrors

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A Brain for Speech

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Abstract

The discovery of mirror neurons in the monkey brain, which activate both when the animal executes a grasping action and when it observes another individual doing the same action, sparked an intense debate about language origins and revived the gestural theory of language origins. The mirror system hypothesis specifies that mirror circuits for grasping provided the scaffolding for the emergence of language-related networks, by breaking into the rigid vocalization system of our ancestors, providing the necessary flexibility for speech and language acquisition. Alternatively, I propose that there is no necessity of a hand grasping system to acquire vocal flexibility, although there has been a tight interaction between hands, gestures and vocalizations in the evolution of human communication.

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  1. Department of Psychiatry, Medical School, and Interdisciplinary Center for Neuroscience, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Francisco Aboitiz

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Aboitiz, F. (2017). Grasping Mirrors. In: A Brain for Speech. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54060-7_8

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