Demonstration and subsequent emulation prove to be fundamental elements for the purpose, as they create the best foundations for learning.
For further information: How to choose the Personal Trainer? with the ability to become active in "performing and" observing a motor action. Let's try to do some clarity.At the "beginning of the 90s" a team of researchers, led by Giacomo Rizzolatti and composed of Vittorio Gallese, Leonardo Fogassi and Luciano Fadiga, studied a Nemestrino macaque with the use of micro-electrodes, a special class of neurons at the level of the " area F5 in the premotor cortex. These were activated both during the execution of a task (or an action), and at the sight of the same task performed by another subject.
The discovery was a real case of serendipity, therefore a mixture of luck and chance. Because of their characteristic of reflecting the actions seen as if they were "mirrored" they were given the name of "mirror neurons". Due to the ethical conflict of carrying out studies with internal micro-electrodes in humans, various new diagnostic methods were then used - thanks above all to Marco Iacoboni - which would have been fundamental to establish the presence of this class in our species. The main mirror areas discovered I'm:
· Anterior rostral portion of the inferior parietal lobe
· Lower sector of the precentral gyrus
· Posterior sector of the inferior frontal gyrus
· Anterior sector the dorsal premotor cortex.
Mirror neurons are involved not only in imitative learning, but also in the understanding of actions, also allowing us to anticipate their outcome, and in the understanding of emotions, a mechanism that allows us to empathize with other individuals - related to the so-called intelligence emotional.
Referring here exclusively to "learning by imitation, let's take a general look at the concept of" learning ".
we will then move on to the other two stages.
The concept of imitation can be interpreted in two ways:
- the first refers to the ability of an individual to replicate an act, belonging to his motor repertoire, after having observed it by others;
- the second presupposes that an individual, observing an act of others, learns that new pattern of action and carries it out, through repetition, in an ever more detailed way.
Imitation is essential for learning. In the "observation of a motor act not present in our" database, the mirror neurons are activated by breaking up the observed act into several fragments. Each fragment corresponds to an already stored movement, transitive or not; then, through the collaboration of other frontal areas, all these frames are assembled allowing the reproduction of the gesture through the definition of a new motor pattern.
