Understanding ‘what’ others do: mirror mechanisms play a crucial role in action perception

Neurophysiological and imaging studies suggest that the inferior frontal cortex (IFC) implements a mechanism that matches perceived actions to one's motor representation of similar actions (mirror mechanism) and recent lesion studies have also established that IFC is critical for action perception. However, to date causative evidence that action perception requires activation within the same populations of IFC neurons involved in action execution is lacking. In this issue, Cattaneo and colleagues provide the first direct evidence that mirror mechanisms in IFC influence action perception. We discuss the implications of these findings for the understanding of the functional role of mirror mechanisms.