How to understand other people’s actions

When we communicate with each other, we mainly use speech. But we also communicate non-verbally using such things as gestures, facial expressions and changes of posture – and these are often more truthful than speech.

How we decode and extract meaning from the complex actions we observe in other people is the subject of a talk being given at Southern Cross University’s Coffs Harbour campus on Friday.

The talk will be given by a leading expert in the field, neuroscientist and clinical neuropsychologist Professor Jason B. Mattingley, from the University of Queensland.

Professor Mattingley believes that one answer is that we process observed actions within our own brain’s systems for producing actions – in cells known as ‘mirror neurons’.

“We know from research on monkeys that mirror neurons are active both when a monkey performs a particular hand action, and also when it passively observes the same action being made by another monkey,” Professor Mattingley said.

“I will describe a series of experiments we have conducted into mirror neurons in humans.

“Our approach has been to combine behavioural methods with measuring the electrical activity of the brain and with locating brain activity to determine how observed and executed actions are processed in the human brain.

“I will also show how, remarkably, the activity of mirror neurons can be shaped by social context. These results help us to understand how we know what another person is feeling and thinking and what can happen when these abilities are impaired in conditions such as schizophrenia and autism.”

The talk is part of a regular Psychology Colloquia series and is open to members of the public. It is being held on Friday, April 30, at 3.30pm, in room D-350 at the Coffs Harbour campus and video-conferenced to room P-158 at the Lismore campus.

Photo: Professor Jason Mattingley, who will give a free public talk about how gestures reveal what we are thinking, at Southern Cross University’s Coffs Harbour campus on Friday, with a video link to the Lismore campus.