
What Do Animals See in the Mirror? - nishs
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/02/what-do-animals-see-in-the-mirror/516348/?single_page=true
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lobster_johnson
One of the weirdest cognitive experiences in my life (as a drug non-user) was
when I walked through a very crowded, dimly-lit bar and suddenly came face to
face with a person who, when I tried to pass him, kept moving to the same side
that I tried to pass on. It took me probably 3 seconds to realize it was a
mirror and that I was trying to pass myself (meanwhile, one of the employees
who was sitting next to the mirror was giggling loudly while profusely
apologizing for doing so; not my proudest moment).

The cognitive weirdness was that during those 3-4 seconds, I genuinely did not
recognize the person as being myself. It was a kind of out-of-body experience.

~~~
wz1000
Try just staring at yourself in the mirror for 10-20 minutes. It is a very
strange, disorienting experience, almost like a dissociative drug.

~~~
david-given
Here is a thing which, once I've told you, you'll never stop noticing:

Your reflection is _always_ staring you fixedly in the eye.

~~~
lobster_johnson
I remember realizing, as a kid, that if you could see someone's eyes, then --
like if you're trying to hide -- _they could also see yours_. Mind blown, at
the time.

~~~
TeMPOraL
If the enemy is in firing range, so are you.

~~~
sokoloff
Tracer rounds work in both directions.

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mrec
There was a distinctly unsettling paper[1] a couple of years ago which found
evidence that _ants_ could recognize themselves in a mirror, which is _really_
not a result you'd expect from something (ab)used as a "sentience test". I've
seen very little followup on this; does anyone know how it's been received?

[1]
[http://www.journalofscience.net/File_Folder/521-532(jos).pdf](http://www.journalofscience.net/File_Folder/521-532\(jos\).pdf)

~~~
marcosdumay
For me, the most unsettling part is that everybody points a lot of good
reasons for this test indicating self-awareness, but then as soon as ants pass
it, everybody just decides the test wasn't any good to start with.

~~~
Amezarak
It's practically a trope in cognitive science and artificial intelligence that
there's an implicit assumption we have that it's only intelligence/self-
awareness/consciousness if only a human can do it. So we devise these tests,
later find out an animal/program can do it, and then decide "oh, that's not
_really_ intelligence/self-awareness/consciousness anyway."

~~~
sametmax
It assumes that the notion of self is a complicated thing. My theory has
always be the opposite. I think the notion of self is the most simple, most
basic thing of all, like the smallest dot possible in a gigantic space.
Anything, no matter how primitive, can have it. I don't think it requires
thoughts or analysis. "I am" is very simple, it's us that try to make it
complicated, wrapping it into more complex concepts like "what", "when",
"where", "who", "purpose" or "quality".

In that sense it's not a surprise that even small creatures can realize "this
is me". It's a leap from "I am", but not a huge one. And more related to the
ability of sense organs than the size of the brain.

~~~
red75prime
I will be surprised if rocks don't have this kind of "smallest dot". They have
no self, but the content of their awareness is also empty, so it perfectly
matches them.

I think that idea of "self" is meaningless if there's no machinery capable of
explicitly representing parts of its own state and operations. There's no
single "smallest dot", but sequence of coevolving systems and representations
of the system in itself.

~~~
sametmax
You are making it complicated again. The system and representation of the
system is a wrapper. It's a construction of a mind wanting to make sense of
things, categorize and organize. "I am" is much more basic than that. It's the
the concept of being and be aware of it. It does not include description,
representation, comparison or context.

There is even the possibility that "I am" can exist without a mind. We can't
prove it though, since proving requires a mind.

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CM30
Someone apparently did a similar test based on a dog's sense of smell instead
of its sight, and it did pass that one:

[https://phys.org/news/2015-12-dogs-animals-
conscience.html](https://phys.org/news/2015-12-dogs-animals-conscience.html)

So perhaps other animal species may pass similar tests modified for senses
they use more than sight.

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deepsun
Wiping the mark on its own body may be just a form of empathy. For example,
when you see someone's yawning, you yawn yourself. Or when you see someone's
hurt, you literally may feel hurt yourself (there were studies showing that
same brain areas are activated when you're OR somebody's else are in pain,
laugh or else).

~~~
carussell
Empathy is exactly where my thoughts led when trying to see how robust these
tests really are. Watching the embedded video though, I think there's a strong
case that elephants are definitively shown to understand that what's in the
mirror is really them. Notice how the shot of one elephant shows that it has
turned away from the mirror _intent_ on washing away the mark around its own
eye. It seems to knock down the empathy argument.

An interesting aspect of the mirror test is what happens with multiple
animals. Presumably it's well established that various types of animals
recognize each other—that they associate identities with others. So when two
bonobos (say) show up in front of a large mirror, surely they will recognize
that one of the bonobos they're seeing in the mirror is the same as they one
at its side. Bonobos and other apes are convincingly argued to be able to
understand what's going on, so not that revealing. But what about dogs, for
example, which certainly have some concept of identity in others, but somehow
seem to fail the mirror test? And what about cross-species recognition? A dog
seeing a familiar cat or human?

A more convincing mirror test, I think, would be if you can silently introduce
another animal to appear behind the one being tested. An animal that takes
note of a predator or prey in the mirror (or opponent or friend) and then
turns around to respond accordingly _surely_ understands the implications of
what's going on in the mirror.

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sunjain
This assumes that eye is the only sensory mechanism to measure if an organism
is self aware or not. Looking at snimal kingdom we already know different
animals rely on other senses more than eyes. So perhaps not the best way to
measure self awareness. Besides we know kids upto certain age also fail this
test, which means is it possible this is an acquired skill?

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cyberferret
One thing the study didn't mention (or that I missed) was the _familiarity_ of
those animals with actual mirrors? I know that nearly all the cats and dogs I
have known in my life have freaked out majorly when they first see themselves
in a mirror, but it doesn't take them very long to figure out that the
reflection is OK and become comfortable with it.

Perhaps they 'learn' that (a) it is themselves, rather than another animal, or
(b) they just figure because their reflection hasn't attacked them, it is
harmless, or (c) The reflection is not responding as another cat/dog would to
aggressive and friendly behaviours and should be ignored? Intriguing.

~~~
M_Grey
The image also has no smell or sound associated with it. In a human's life, it
would be like smelling something familiar, but not seeing or hearing anything.
You'd conclude it was just the wind, whatever, and move on. Whatever the
mystery might be, you _know_ it's not that familiar thing, because you'd see
that.

A dog's sense of smell is like that for them, in the way that sight is for us.

~~~
smhost
I don't know much about brains so this might be a nonsense question, but how
sure are we that dogs experience human emotions and that the behavior we
associate with human emotions isn't something dogs evolved to take advantage
of us? Or is that the same thing as human emotions?

~~~
M_Grey
No one knows what another person, never mind another animal experiences. It's
all a matter of inference, and testing which yields consistent results. Dogs
certainly appear to be both very aware of the human emotional state, and to
have their own emotional landscape. That said, I wouldn't say that they're
"human emotions". They're dogs... they're very different, but different and
"less" are not the same thing.

As for your last point, if that's the case, would that be "taking advantage"?
At some point, if the behavior is mutual and mutually beneficial, and no one
can tell the difference between sincere altruism and some fundamentally
selfish motive... does it matter?

Ironically I will say that the view you're considering at the end, when
applies to humans is called "cynicism" from the ancient Greek "Kynikos" which
meant "Dog-like". This is Cynic, in the philosophical sense, not the
pejorative by the way... the belief that people act out of their own self-
interest; even charity is done because it makes us feel good.

The counter-argument being, "And?"

~~~
woodandsteel
>No one knows what another person, never mind another animal experiences.

The word "know" has many different meanings, so it depends which one you are
using, and for what purpose. For many practical purposes we often can know
perfectly well a good deal of what another person is experiencing. So for
instance when we see someone walk up to a door and open it, we know that they
saw the door, thought it would be desirable to walk through it, and knew how
to open it.

~~~
ZeroFries
His point still stands that inference is what allows you to make a good guess
as to what's going on in another being's mind.

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TwoBit
Dogs fail this test, but I knew somebody who said that after putting a cone on
his dog at the vet, the dog ran up their stairs to the bedroom with the mirror
and used it to examine the cone from multiple angles.

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pron
I don't know if my cat recognizes herself in the mirror, but she definitely
understands how mirrors work, and enjoys using the reflection. For example,
even when she can look at me, she sometimes likes looking at my reflection in
the mirror with me behind her as I hold a ball. She tracks the ball in the
mirror, and when I throw it, she uses the reflection to locate it. She
succeeds every time.

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jzl
See also: The Lacan Mirror Stage, a 20th-century area of post-Freudian
philosophical discussion that tangentially led to behavioral studies of humans
and animals and their sense of "self", including the kids of studies mentioned
in the OP.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_stage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_stage)

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mirimir
Peacocks will attack their reflections. In the side of your new car, for
example :( So they presumably think that they're _other_ peacocks.

~~~
pestaa
Or they may disagree with your choice of brand.

~~~
amelius
Or jealousy with its looks.

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Pica_soO
Also very interesting, the concept of the antagonistic other. Meaning, almost
every animal has some escape reflexes, and interprets certain signals as a foe
approaching (fast flickering rippling motions, like cloth). But some can
anticipate the foes thoughts and avoid dangerous situations.

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OJFord
This doesn't seem to address lack of caring?

I think I'd just have assumed babies/infants didn't care that their face was
dirty or whatever, rather than jumping to 'they don't recognise themselves'.
No reason not to extend that to animals?

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Kiro
Isn't there a risk that they feel the paint in their face?

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marze
The researchers appear to assume the subject knows what they look like, so a
mark should be notable.

Seems a dubious assumption in some cases.

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bjxjhxbx
xD

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skookumchuck
A fun question - why does a mirror swap left and right, but not up and down?

~~~
Dove
The mirror doesn't do the swapping - _you_ do. If you hold a piece of paper so
you can read it, you have to turn it around to show it to a mirror. Did you
turn it up/down? The mirror shows it upside down. Did you turn it left/right?
The mirror shows it reversed left/right.

When we interact with other people, they are normally rotated horizontally
from us, not vertically, so rotating a paper horizontally is appropriate to
give them the same view of the object we have. If we typically met face to
face with a vertical rotation - one of us standing on his head, but right
hands both on the same side, we would think a vertical rotation was the
appropriate thing to do to show a paper to someone else, and would wonder why
mirrors showed things upside down.

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skookumchuck
My cat utterly ignores the TV. Until one day it was a show with a lot of
barking dogs on it, the cat got very interested in it.

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lngnmn
Another animal without accompanying confirmations through other sensory
channels, so they are confused and does not act as in the presence of a real
animal.

There is no question that they see "themselves". Animals have no such concept
since self-awareness (and concepts per se) _require_ abstract reasoning which
in turn _require_ a language capacity by corresponding brain machinery, which
is not present (not yet evolved).

To be precise, animals do have aggregated representation of a sensory input,
which we might call a concept, so they recognize things and other animals, but
no _abstract_ concepts detached from perceptions and referentiable by sound-
labels or words, which requires specialized brain circuitry.

Nothing to see here.

~~~
ZeroFries
I can be self-aware without any words in my mind. Self-awareness does not
depend on language; if anything it's the other way around.

Edit: I also have a vague memory of knowing of my own existence before having
the words to express it.

