Can We Read Minds? Mirror Neurons in Relationships
One of the most important parts of communication happens without any words. Each time we look at another person we are unconsciously making guesses about how that person is feeling and what he or she is intending to do. Sometimes we call this “empathy,” and we label some people more “empathetic” than others. But it turns out that we read each other because of our biology.
You see, your brain and my brain are both equipped with mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are tiny cells that help us feel what others are feeling. When I see your face frowning, my neurons are going to tell me what I feel like when I frown, and I’m going to guess that is how you are feeling. When I see you picking up somethings, my neurons are going to guess from how you move how that thing feels, and how heavy it might be.
The things is that I won’t wait to find out what your frown means before I feel a feeling that tells me how I think you feel. My brain will automatically register what you are doing and begin to make an interpretation.
This can be a very good thing. When someone is crying I want to have the ability to guess that they are sad so I can respond. If our mirror neurons don’t work well (we miss social cues even when we see them) or if we don’t look at people’s faces (most of us stop looking in the middle of a fight), we might find that other people accuse us of being insensitive, or not caring. So mirror neurons are important; we need to have and use this inbuilt system to stay connected with those we love.
For some of us, though, our mirror neurons can get in the way and push us into constant anxiety and conflict. Some of us have trained our mirror neurons so well that we begin to read every frown or every sign of anger as something horrible. We react too quickly to facial expressions and get too anxious. Our anxiety drives us to pick at our partners, or constantly guess how they are feeling.
Now imagine if you pair one person whose mirror neurons are too sensitive (making him or her jumpy or anxious about his or her partner) with another person who shuts down and looks away a lot (making them miss her or his partner’s signals). You have a recipe for fights that may be about nothing at all except signaling gone awry.
Can our mirror neurons adapt and grow? Is it possible to increase our empathy, or slow down our reaction to what we see on others’ faces? Yes, it turns out that we are incredibly adaptive creatures, and our brains are constantly changing. Relationship counseling often includes looking at how we are automatically interpreting (or not interpreting) our partner. Couples are more successful when they have a strong ability to use both their mirror neuron system and their verbal system to keep them connected and communicating.
If you are interested in learning more about mirror neurons (and have a spare hour) Marco Iacoboni, author of “Mirroring People” has an interesting lecture on youtube.