mirroring, internalizing and imitatating body movements
How we interact with the things in the world alters the ways we perceive the world.
The bodies of others are the most important things we encounter and interact with throughout our lives. We understand others’ bodies and their actions through our own bodies … viewing actions of others’ resonates in the areas of our brains that create our own actions. Coordinating our actions with others depends on understanding others’ actions but also on shared understanding of what we are engaged in, on rhythm, on joint attention, on the task at hand, and on what surrounds us in the world.
Mirroring means that the bodies of others get internalised in our minds and our bodies get internalised in theirs. The mirror system mediates and reflects just about every kind of action: of our hands, our legs, our posture, our faces. The mimicking is internal, but it can leak out into actual behavior. We imitate each other’s body movements and facial expressions.