Psychology is the science of behaviour and is concerned with perception and learning. The behavioural patterns of organisms and how they adapt to changing environments is of particular interest to psychologists. In the past psychology was based mainly on introspection. The assumption of early behaviourists, such as Pavlov, was that all behaviour was essentially of the same form (George, 1971).
Humans are social animals, we share this feature with many other species (Gallese, 2001). Humans live in very complex societies and are therefore required to develop certain cognitive skills that enable us to do a variety of things such as recognise, understand, cope and react to other human beings (Gallese, 2001). In our daily lives we are constantly
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The activation of mirror neurons is an automatic process that is not under conscious control (Frith, 2007). When we observe others moving the motor areas of the brain become activated and imitation of the movement occurs automatically (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999).The idea that a mirror system exists in the brain arises from the observation that the same brain areas are activated when observing another individual experiencing an emotion or performing an action as when we experience the same emotion or perform the same action ourselves (Frith, 2007). Mirror neurons are sensory motor type cells located in the brain and are of particular interest in studies involving social behaviours. The understanding of mirror neurons is important as it may provide physical or biological explanations for social cognition (Encyclopaedia, 2014). Research thus far on the location of mirror neurons shows that they are located in different cortical sites in monkeys and in humans. In monkeys these neurons are found in the inferior frontal gyrus, area F5, and the inferior parietal lobule (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004). In humans, mirror neurons seem to be located in the premotor cortex and the inferior parietal lobe and the temporal lobe (Gazzola & Keysers,