Mirror neurons are a special type of brain cell that were once thought to explain the brain basis of language and that of our understanding of the actions of other people, or “action understanding.” However, between the late 1990s and early 2010s, neuroscientist Gregory Hickok crafted a devastating argument against these claims, culminating in his 2014 book “The Myth of Mirror Neurons: The Real Neuroscience of Communication and Cognition.” (WW. Norton and Co.) His critiques contributed to a lively debate on the topic of mirror neurons, language, and action understanding.

So what are mirror neurons? In this episode of the Thinking Tools Podcast, I speak with Dr. Gregory Hickok about his book as well as a sophisticated dual stream model of speech and language processing in the brain, which he created with neuroscientist David Poeppel.

Dr. Hickok’s research focuses on the neurobiology of language, speech, and hearing with application to understanding the nature of acquired language disorders (aphasia). He has published over 190 scientific papers and book chapters and edited several book volumes on the neurobiology of language and hearing. His research uses a multi-method approach including functional MRI, electrocorticography, neuropsychology, and computational modeling, and has been funded by the National Institutes of Health for the last three decades. Dr. Hickok was the inaugural Chair of the Society for the Neurobiology, founding director of UC Irvine’s Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and Center for Language Science, and Editor-in-Chief of Psychonomic Bulletin & Review from 2014-2019. Dr. Hickok received his Ph.D. in Psychology and Linguistics at Brandeis University in 1991 and did postdoctoral training in Cognitive Neuroscience at MIT and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He joined the faculty at UC Irvine in 1996 where he is currently Professor of Cognitive Sciences and Language Science.

Thanks for your time and I hope you have a great weekend.
Andrew

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