Mirror Neurons In Ethical Research

Introduction: Empathy, the ability to recognize and share feelings of others, has been in our brains since the beginning of time. It was discovered by the Greeks which they called it , “Empatheia” meaning, “in feeling.” Then a German psychologist named Robert Vischer in 1837 and he called it “Einfühlung,” meaning “feeling into.”(Stueber, 2013) Vischer wrote a book called, “Über das opstiche Formgefühl: Ein Beitrag zu Aesthetik.”(Schott, 2015) In this book Vischer describes how empathy is based on sense perception such as sight and sound.(Schoot, 2015) In 1909 Edward Titchener, a British psychologist, developed the English translation which we now know as “empathy.” (Stueber, 2013) Mirror neurons are neurons in the brain that cause humans to unconsciously imitate the actions of others. (Alford, 2014) Mirror neurons were discovered in 1980 by Neuroscientist Giacomo Rizzolatti. (Winerman, 2005) Mirror neurons exist in both humans and animals this makes it easy to do ethical research on mirror neurons. An example of mirror neurons working is when you see a street performer and you are pleased with the performance and you see other people leave tips for the performer, you (due to mirror
When you hear that a friend’s family member has passed away you may see that other people are there comforting that friend. After witnessing this you feel more empathy and your mirror neurons fire off and you go comfort that friend. According to the, “Pictures of pain.” case study performed by G. D. Schott states that after participants were shown painful pictures their brains showed that mirror neurons were active during the empathetic experience. (Schott, 2015) These pictures of pain included Middle Age paintings, World War II soldiers, and modern day pictures. The photographs through sight cause the mirror neurons to fire off in the brain, and evoked the empathy emotion. (Schott,