It needs to be acknowledged however that this interpretation of mirror neurons crucially depends on the assumption that the primary function of mirror neurons consists in providing us with a cognitive grasp of another person’s actions and emotions. This interpretation has however been criticized by researchers and philosophers who think that neural resonance presupposes rather than provides us with an understanding of what is going on in the minds of others (Csibra 2007, Hickok 2008 and 2014). They have also pointed out that in observing another person’s emotion or behavior, we never fully “mirror” another person’s neural stimulation. The neuroscientist Jean Decety has argued that in observing another person’s pain our vicariously stimulated pain matrix is not sensitive to the phenomenal quality of pain. Rather it is sensitive to pain as an indicator of “aversion and withdrawal when exposed to danger and threats”(Decety and Cowell 2015, 6 and Decety 2010). At least as far as empathy for pain is concerned, our neural resonance is also modulated by a variety of contextual factors, such as how close we feel to the observed subject, whether we regard the pain to be morally justified (as in the case of punishment, for example) or whether we regard it as unavoidable and necessary, such as in a medical procedure (Singer and Lamm 2009; but see also Allen 2010, Borg 2007, Debes 2010, Gallese 2016, Goldman 2009, Iacoboni 2011, Jacob 2008, Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia 2016, and Stueber 2012a). 