John, Thinking about your reply, I remembered another point from last night's programme - You mentioned, "the perfectly legitmate question as to what stops these would be athletes from simply going out and playing the game itself instead of watching." Well, I'm happy to say the scientists had an explanation for couch-potatoes everywhere!   :-) It seems that the mirror neurons are activated more intensely by extreme or exaggerated versions of familiar gestures/movements. One scientist explained that the human neurology is wired to recognise patterns and to recognise differences, so a movement that is familiar but exaggerated meets both criteria and attracts double attention (very loose paraphrase, from memory). So the mirror neurone response is stronger when we see a gesture/movement that is either beyond our personal capabilities, or beyond the "norm" for our species - the top athletes or performers. There was even a suggestion that this might lead to an explanation for our concepts of beauty and aesthetics. Not sure if that has any relevance for NLP, except that it might explain our fascination with excellence and "the difference that makes a difference"? Cheers, Jon