1. Mirror Neurons THE IPOD EXPERIMENT

2. What is a Mirror Neuron? A mirror neuron is the part of the brain that feels empathy. When your mirror neurons are activated you will often make a certain facial expression or say something to make someone feel better. As you can see to the right, this sports fan has a worried look on his face. Probably because his team is losing or someone just got hurt, causing him to feel empathy.

3. Purpose/Hypothesis The purpose of the experiment was to see how students/teachers would react to certain situations and see how empathetic hey would be. We hypothesized that most people would either show interest or mimic the stress of the actor on their own face. We thought very few would step in and say something.

7. 1.Find a test subject. 2.While test subject is watching, “throw” iPod to the other person, but really slam on ground. 3.Actors seem upset, and get frustrated. 4.Record the reaction of the test subject. 5.Repeat steps 1-4 as many times as possible. Procedure

8. Data #NameGrade/TeacherReaction 1Lizzie7 Interest, Sympathy feels as though she had been in situation 2PaulTeacherMimics stress on face 3Mikayla8Mimicked stress on face 4Sra. BobrowTeacherMimicked stress on face, gave words of advice 5Cooper5Mimicked stress expressed sorrow 6Dakota6Mimicked stress on face 7Sra. WertheimerTeacherMimicked stress on face 8Lance5Showed Interest 9Ethan6Completely mimicked stress on face, showed interest 10Griffin6Showed interest 11Reed6Showed interest 12Solomon6Mimicked face, showed interest 13Scarlett6Showed interest 14Jasmine6Showed interest 15Bennett7Mimicked face then laughed 16Bumni7Showed interest 17CathyTeacherMimicked reaction said “Uh-oh!”

9. Conclusion We proved our hypothesis correct. Most people would at least look for a few seconds so maybe they could have been thinking about the situation and what they would have done. This shows empathy and some were more empathic than others. Many gave a glance for a few seconds or showed interest some other way. Also many people’s mirror neurons took over and they mimicked what they would have felt like with their facial expression if it happened to them. Finally, less people but still some stepped in and said something to the actor whose iPod got broken. I think most people were empathic but only a few were brave enough to say something.

10. Thank You Ania Flanigan, Hayley Miller, Beau English