While thinking about crowd behaviour and the reach of influencers through social media I stumbled upon (thanks Google) Marc Dingman, and his blog. Marc is a neuroscientist looking at human behaviour. From him I found out about Mirror neurons and the research by Rizzolatti and his team in Italy. Whilst one of my modules in my Psychology degree looked at human behaviour and development as well as language and learning I was not aware of this branch of research.

In essence the research suggests a group of neurons is activated when we do certain tasks or see (and hear) others doing it. To quote from research being done in humans....

'.... when a person observes another person's action, their motor cortex becomes more excitable. This excitability can be measured by recording the size of a motor evoked potential (MEP) .... The changes in MEP size are taken as a measure of mirror neuron system activity, because MEPs come from primary motor cortex which is closely connected to the mirror neuron regions of the brain....'

In other words by observing actions in others our neurons are stimulated to copy (mirror) them. This has implications in human behaviour studies where 'free will' seems to be reduced and 'automatic behaviour' results. I don't know about you but when I watch rugby I can become very excitable and physically engaged as the rucking and mauling gets closer to the try line. When with a group of friends that effect seems to be magnified.

To further quote.....

'...Eye tracking provides another indirect measure that may reflect mirror neuron processing. As a person moves their hand, their eyes move ahead of the hand to look at the object the person will grasp. Similarly, when watching someone else's action, your eyes are likely to anticipate what the other person will do....'

In other words we start to anticipate action.

Further research has looked at audio stimuli. It suggests that 'mirroring' can occur even through sound. We do not just need to see an action being done - just hear it. As humans we are very well attuned to peoples moods and can 'feel' it when talking to people. Next time you speak to someone on the phone just check out what you think their mood is. Happy, sad, excited, bored?

From a social networking standpoint this could impact how people are able to influence others. Without the internet we would normally only be able to influence others who are physically close. With the internet WOM marketing and 'crowd influencing' shifts up to another level.