A monkey in a lab watched a human lab assistant raise an ice cream cone to his mouth and neurons in the monkey's premotor cortex began firing as if the monkey were about to eat the ice cream cone. This example illustrates:
English · High School · Thu Feb 04 2021
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The example you provided illustrates the phenomenon of "mirror neurons." These are a type of neuron that fire both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another, especially if that action is something the animal knows or could perform themselves. In this scenario, the monkey's premotor cortex demonstrated activity that correlates with the action of eating an ice cream cone, despite the monkey not actually performing the action itself. The mirror neurons responded to the observation of the action just as they would if the monkey were the one doing the action.