For centuries, philosophers and scientists have struggled to discover the mysterious origins of human language.

A growing body of psychological research may have developed a neurological answer to this question, finding that language is closely intertwined with our abilities to empathize with and understand other people. Not only does recent scholarship suggest that our language and empathy have shared roots, but also that these roots are embedded in specific neurons in the brain: mirror neurons.

Mirror neurons are essentially special types of brain cells that are triggered when viewing the actions of other individuals. For example, when we see another person fall and hurt themselves, our mirror neurons trigger the part of our own brain that would be activated if we had fallen.

These brain cells were first discovered in macaque monkeys in the 1980s by Dr. Giacomo Rizzolatti at the University of Parma, Italy. After hooking up electrodes to the monkeys’ brains, Dr. Rizzolatti found that when one monkey watched another grasp a peanut, the some of the same neurons fired in both subjects’ brains.

Later research found similar brain cells in humans, and Dr. Rizzolatti began connecting mirror neurons with our ability understand other people’s emotions and feel empathy for them. In fact, some studies have found that people living with autism, which is characterized by a lessened capacity for understanding other people’s emotions, have impaired mirror neuron structures.

But what about language? Ever since the discovery of mirror neurons, scientists like Dr. Rizzolatti have investigated their connection with the development of language. They found that the area of the brain associated with speech were also necessary for our understanding of other people’s physical actions.

More recently, Dr. Michael Corballis, a psychologist at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, published his auspiciously named The Truth about Language, arguing that language emerged from our instinctive desire to gesture at external objects.

His argument is that when primates gesture at the world around them, they are inherently communicating with fellows, directing their companions’ attention towards a given object of interest. This naturally ties into the way our brains instinctively mirror the actions of others through mirror neurons, enabling these gestures to communicate at the neurological level.

This argument does not diminish the incredible complexity of language, instead it clarifies the notion that communication is inherently interpersonal and deeply rooted in our brains. In fact, some mirror neuron experts argue that, not only are they deeply tied into language, but that they are behind many extraordinary human abilities.

For example, Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran, of the University of California, San Diego, credits mirror neurons for the explosion of human culture around 50,000 years ago, known as the “great leap forward,” because it enabled collective action and cooperation on a large scale.

While many psychologists are incredibly excited at the promising field of mirror neuron study, it is also important to note that there are many skeptics.  Dr. Christian Jarrett, who writes extensively on psychological issues, called mirror neurons “the most hyped concept in neuroscience” in a 2012 article.

Dr. Jarrett contends that this sort of investigation remains highly controversial and disputes the idea that mirror neurons inspired language, empathy, or culture. Instead, he argues that mirror neurons develop through experience. He maintains that our brains evolved mirror neurons alongside language and culture, rather than causing them to come into existence in the first place.

For more information on language and empathy, see our past blogs here and here.

While we have often discussed how universal emotional expressions are, emerging research is expanding this universality even beyond our own species!

A recent 2017 study from the University of Helsinki sought to better understand how humans recognize emotions and facial expressions in dogs. The study found that, not only can humans effectively read canine expressions, but many only had to rely on basic human empathy to do so.

While it seems intuitive that humans with long-term experience living with dogs can learn to read their facial expressions, this study went further, finding that previous experiences with dogs were only a secondary factor.

Instead, the ability to empathize in general proved to be an effect method for understanding canine facial expressions. That said, participants with previous experiences with dogs were better able to understand other aspects of body language, such as posture or tail movements.

This research built on previous work that explored our capacity to read canine expressions. In a 2013 study, researchers at the Walden University in Florida showed human participants images of a dog displaying various emotions, including happiness, fear, sadness, anger, and disgust. Long-term followers of this blog might notice a telling overlap with the seven basic emotions.

While participants often had trouble identifying sadness and disgust, almost half were able to recognize fear in the dog’s face. Surprisingly, 88 percent properly identified happiness, including those with little previous experience with dogs.

This study helped establish our ability to read canine emotions, and the more recent study from the University of Helsinki demonstrated that this ability is rooted in facial recognition, not unlike our ability to recognize emotions in fellow humans.

Perhaps more surprisingly, it isn’t just humans that can read dog emotions. Additional research has also found that they are quite good at reading ours!

For example, a 2016 study out of the University of Lincoln, exposed dogs to a series of images displaying human facial expressions. They juxtaposed these images with audio clips of humans expressing similar emotions through voice commands. Sometimes they matched the audio and visual cues to present the same emotion, while often they exposed the dog to conflicting emotions.

Their research found that dogs showed a marked increase in attentiveness and interest when the audio and visual cues displayed the same emotion. This suggested that they had the ability to recognize human emotions, from both our facial expressions and our voices.

Concurrent research, again at the University of Helsinki, came to a similar conclusion. A 2016 study tracked the eyes of dogs that sought to read human faces, finding that they focus primarily on our eyes and responded quickly to expressions of anger.

These methods of inquiry help bridge the gap between human and animal emotions. This does more than understand interspecies interactions. In fact, by comparing forms of facial or emotional recognition, we can better understand the nuances of our own, human capacities.

For more information on animal emotions, see our past posts here and here.