Abstract

The aim of this narrative review is to give a general overview of the relationship between motor and minimal social cognition (i.e. its basic elements) in neuroscience, in an attempt to begin to unify a literature that is rarefied, not always punctual, and that handles in many different ways the various planes of analysis and concepts that can be used to define the vast world of social cognition. The article is structured in an introduction that frames the general, theoretical-philosophical debate on the role of motor in cognition. It continues by focusing on social cognition in its basic components (interaction, understanding of the other’s motor purpose, empathy, joint action and coordination), and on the most relevant evidence coming from neuroscience, involving the role of mirror neurons