Motor System Involvement in the Perception of Singing

Many theorists have proposed that a spontaneous internal motor simulation occurs during the observation of intentional actions, and that this simulation supports action understanding. The simulation is thought to involve a coupling of sensory and motor systems along a dorsal pathway that connects visual and posterior auditory areas with inferior parietal lobule and inferior frontal gyrus. Collectively this network has been referred to as the action-observation network (“or mirror system”). This chapter introduces the Spontaneous Internal Motor Simulation of Song (SIMSS) hypothesis, which specifies the circumstances under which the observation of human song may trigger a spontaneous internal motor simulation.