Action mirroring and action understanding: an alternative account

This chapter examines the relation between mirroring and understanding of actions. It challenges the notion that action mirroring is generated by direct matching and serves the function of action understanding in terms of their goals. It argues that action mirroring is generated by action reconstruction via top-down emulation from action interpretation produced outside the motor system and that it does not follow but rather anticipates ongoing actions and enables action coordination with others.