The mirror test—sometimes called the mark test, mirror self-recognition (MSR) test, red spot technique, or rouge test—is a behavioral technique developed in 1970 by American psychologist Gordon Gallup Jr. as an attempt to determine whether an animal possesses the ability of visual self-recognition. The MSR test is the traditional method for attempting to measure physiological and cognitive

self-awareness In philosophy of self, self-awareness is the experience of one's own personality or individuality. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. While consciousness is being aware of one's environment and body and lifesty ...

. However, agreement has been reached that animals can be self-aware in ways not measured by the mirror test, such as distinguishing between their own and others' songs and scents. In the classic MSR test, an animal is anesthetized and then marked (e.g. paint or sticker) on an area of the body the animal normally cannot see (e.g. forehead). When the animal recovers from the anesthetic, it is given access to a mirror. If the animal then touches or investigates the mark, it is taken as an indication that the animal perceives the reflected image as an image of itself, rather than of another animal. Very few species have passed the MSR test. Species that have include the great apes, a single Asiatic elephant, rays, dolphins, orcas, the

Eurasian magpie The Eurasian magpie or common magpie (''Pica pica'') is a resident breeding bird throughout the northern part of the Eurasian continent. It is one of several birds in the crow family (corvids) designated magpies, and belongs to the Holarctic ra ...

, and the

cleaner wrasse The wrasses are a family, Labridae, of marine fish, many of which are brightly colored. The family is large and diverse, with over 600 species in 81 genera, which are divided into 9 subgroups or tribes. They are typically small, most of them le ...

. A wide range of species has been reported to fail the test, including several species of

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...

giant panda The giant panda (''Ailuropoda melanoleuca''), also known as the panda bear (or simply the panda), is a bear species endemic to China. It is characterised by its bold black-and-white coat and rotund body. The name "giant panda" is sometimes us ...

s, and sea lions.

Method and history

The inspiration for the mirror test comes from an anecdote about Charles Darwin and a captive orangutan. While visiting the

London Zoo London Zoo, also known as ZSL London Zoo or London Zoological Gardens is the world's oldest scientific zoo. It was opened in London on 27 April 1828, and was originally intended to be used as a collection for science, scientific study. In 1831 o ...

in 1838, Darwin observed an orangutan, named Jenny, throwing a tantrum after being teased with an apple by her keeper. This started him thinking about the subjective experience of an orangutan. He also watched Jenny gaze into a mirror and noted the possibility that she recognized herself in the reflection.Carl Zimmer. ''The Descent of Man: The Concise Edition.'' excerpt available a
http://carlzimmer.com/books/descentofman/excerpt.html
. In 1970, Gordon Gallup Jr. experimentally investigated the possibility of self-recognition with two male and two female wild preadolescent

chimpanzee The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative th ...

s (''Pan troglodytes''), none of which had presumably seen a mirror previously. Each chimpanzee was put into a room by itself for two days. Next, a full-length mirror was placed in the room for a total of 80 hours at periodically decreasing distances. A multitude of behaviors was recorded upon introducing the mirrors to the chimpanzees. Initially, the chimpanzees made threatening gestures at their own images, ostensibly seeing their own reflections as threatening. Eventually, the chimps used their own reflections for self-directed responding behaviors, such as grooming parts of their body previously not observed without a mirror, picking their noses, making faces, and blowing bubbles at their own reflections. Gallup expanded the study by manipulating the chimpanzees' appearance and observing their reaction to their reflection in the mirror. Gallup anesthetized the chimpanzees and then painted a red alcohol-soluble dye on the eyebrow ridge and on the top half of the opposite ear. When the dye dried, it had virtually no olfactory or tactile cues. Gallup then returned the chimpanzees to the cage (with the mirror removed) and allowed them to regain full consciousness. He then recorded the frequency with which the chimpanzees spontaneously touched the marked areas of skin. After 30 minutes, the mirror was reintroduced into the room and the frequency of touching the marked areas again determined. The frequency of touching increased to four to ten, with the mirror present, compared to only one when the mirror had been removed. The chimpanzees sometimes inspected their fingers visually or olfactorily after touching the marks. Other mark-directed behavior included turning and adjusting of the body to better view the mark in the mirror, or tactile examination of the mark with an appendage while viewing the mirror. An important aspect of the classical mark-test (or rouge test) is that the mark/dye is nontactile, preventing attention being drawn to the marking through additional perceptual cues ( somesthesis). For this reason, animals in the majority of classical tests are anesthetized. Some tests use a tactile marker. If the creature stares unusually long at the part of its body with the mark or tries to rub it off, then it is said to pass the test. Animals that are considered to be able to recognize themselves in a mirror typically progress through four stages of behavior when facing a mirror: Gallup conducted a follow-up study in which two chimpanzees with no prior experience of a mirror were put under anesthesia, marked, and observed. After recovery, they made no mark-directed behaviors either before or after being provided with a mirror. The rouge test was also done by

Michael Lewis Michael Monroe Lewis (born October 15, 1960) Gale Biography In Context. is an American author and financial journalist. He has also been a contributing editor to '' Vanity Fair'' since 2009, writing mostly on business, finance, and economics. H ...

and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn in 1979 for the purpose of self-recognition with human mothers and their children.

Implication and alternate explanations

The default implication drawn from Gallup's test is that those animals who pass the test possess some form of self-recognition. However, a number of authors have suggested alternative explanations of a pass. For example, Povinelli suggests that the animal may see the reflection as some odd entity that it is able to control through its own movements. When the reflected entity has a mark on it, then the animal can remove the mark or alert the reflected entity to it using its own movements to do so. Critically, this explanation does not assume that the animals necessarily see the reflected entity as "self".

Criticism

The MSR test has been criticized for several reasons, in particular because it may result in false negative findings. The MSR test may be of limited value when applied to species that primarily use senses other than vision. For example, dogs mainly use olfaction and

audition An audition is a sample performance by an actor, singer, musician, dancer or other performer. It typically involves the performer displaying their talent through a previously memorized and rehearsed solo piece or by performing a work or piece ...

; vision is used third. This may be why dogs fail the MSR test. With this in mind, biologist Marc Bekoff developed a scent-based paradigm using dog urine to test self-recognition in canines. He tested his own dog, but his results were inconclusive. Dog cognition researcher Alexandra Horowitz formalized Bekoff's idea in a controlled experiment, first reported in 2016 and published in 2017. She compared the dogs' behavior when examining their own and others' odors, and also when examining their own odor with an added smell "mark" analogous to the visual mark in MSR tests. These subjects not only discriminated their own odor from that of other dogs, as Bekoff had found, but also spent more time investigating their own odor "image" when it was modified, as subjects who pass the MSR test do. A 2016 study suggested an ethological approach, the "Sniff test of self-recognition (STSR)" which did not shed light on different ways of checking for self-recognition. Another concern with the MSR test is that some species quickly respond aggressively to their mirror reflection as if it were a threatening conspecific, thereby preventing the animal to calmly consider what the reflection actually represents. This may be why gorillas and monkeys fail the MSR test. In an MSR test, animals may not recognise the mark as abnormal, or may not be sufficiently motivated to react to it. However, this does not mean they are unable to recognize themselves. For example, in an MSR test conducted on three elephants, only one elephant passed the test, but the two elephants that failed still demonstrated behaviors that can be interpreted as self-recognition. The researchers commented that the elephants might not have touched the mark because it was not important enough to them. Similarly, lesser apes infrequently engage in self-grooming, which may explain their failure to touch a mark on their heads in the mirror test. Frans de Waal, a biologist and primatologist at Emory University, has stated that self-awareness is not binary, and the mirror test should not be relied upon as a sole indicator of self-awareness, though it is a good test to have. Different animals adapt to the mirror in different ways. Finally, controversy arose over whether self-recognition (''through specifically visual stimuli'') implies self-awareness. Dogs recognize their own scent as different from others' scents, but fail the traditional, visual mirror test. There are also many animals that are biologically unfit for this test, for example, certain species of mole that are born blind.

Non-human animals

Several studies using a wide range of species have investigated the occurrence of spontaneous, mark-directed behavior when given a mirror, as originally proposed by Gallup. Most marked animals given a mirror initially respond with social behavior, such as aggressive displays, and continue to do so during repeated testing. Only a few species have touched or directed behavior toward the mark, thereby passing the classic MSR test. Findings in MSR studies are not always conclusive. Even in chimpanzees, the species most studied and with the most convincing findings, clear-cut evidence of self-recognition is not obtained in all individuals tested. Prevalence is about 75% in young adults and considerably less in young and aging individuals. Until the 2008 study on magpies, self-recognition was thought to reside in the

neocortex The neocortex, also called the neopallium, isocortex, or the six-layered cortex, is a set of layers of the mammalian cerebral cortex involved in higher-order brain functions such as sensory perception, cognition, generation of motor commands, ...

area of the brain. However, this brain region is absent in nonmammals. Self-recognition may be a case of

convergent evolution Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last com ...

, where similar evolutionary pressures result in similar behaviors or traits, although species arrive at them by different routes, and the underlying mechanism may be different.

Animals that have passed

Mammals

= Cetaceans

= *

Bottlenose dolphin Bottlenose dolphins are aquatic mammals in the genus ''Tursiops.'' They are common, cosmopolitan members of the family Delphinidae, the family of oceanic dolphins. Molecular studies show the genus definitively contains two species: the co ...

(''Tursiops truncatus''): Researchers in a study on two male bottlenose dolphins observed their reactions to mirrors after having a mark placed on them. Reactions such as decreased delay in approaching the mirror, repetitious head circling and close viewing of the eye or genital region that had been marked, were reported as evidence of MSR in these species. *

Killer whale The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus '' Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black-and-white ...

(''Orcinus orca''): Killer whales and

false killer whale The false killer whale (''Pseudorca crassidens'') is a species of oceanic dolphin that is the only extant representative of the genus '' Pseudorca''. It is found in oceans worldwide but mainly in tropical regions. It was first described in 18 ...

s (''Pseudorca crassidens'') may be able to recognise themselves in mirrors.

= Primates

= *

Bonobo The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee, is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus '' Pan,'' the other being the co ...

(''Pan paniscus'') *

Bornean orangutan The Bornean orangutan (''Pongo pygmaeus'') is a species of orangutan endemic to the island of Borneo. Together with the Sumatran orangutan (''Pongo abelii'') and Tapanuli orangutan (''Pongo tapanuliensis''), it belongs to the only genus of grea ...

(''Pongo pygmaeus''): However, mirror tests with an infant (2-year-old), male orangutan failed to reveal self-recognition. * Chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''): However, mirror tests with an infant (11 months old) male chimpanzee failed to reveal self-recognition. Two young chimpanzees showed retention of MSR after one year without access to mirrors. *

Western gorilla The western gorilla (''Gorilla gorilla'') is a great ape found in Africa, one of two species of the hominid genus ''Gorilla''. Large and robust with males weighing around , the hair is significantly lighter in color than the eastern gorilla, '' ...

(''Gorilla gorilla''): Findings for western gorillas have been mixed; more so than for the other great apes. At least four studies have reported that gorillas failed to show self-recognition. However, other studies have shown self-recognition although on gorillas with extensive human contact and required modification of the test by habituating the gorillas to the mirror and not using anesthetic.

Koko Koko or KOKO may refer to: Animals *Koko (gorilla) (1971–2018), a gorilla trained to communicate in American Sign Language *Koko (dog) (2005–2012), the Australian kelpie in the 2011 film ''Red Dog'' *Koko (horse), an Irish racehorse that won ...

reportedly passed the MSR test, but this was without anesthetic. In gorillas, protracted eye contact is an aggressive gesture and they may, therefore, fail the mirror test because they deliberately avoid making eye contact with their reflections. This could also explain why only gorillas with extensive human interaction and a certain degree of separation from other gorillas and usual gorilla behavior pass the test.

= Proboscidea

= *

Asian elephant The Asian elephant (''Elephas maximus''), also known as the Asiatic elephant, is the only living species of the genus '' Elephas'' and is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in ...

(''Elephas maximus''): In a study performed in 2006, three female Asian elephants were exposed to a large mirror to investigate their responses. Visible marks and invisible sham-marks were applied to the elephants' heads to test whether they would pass the MSR test. One of the elephants showed mark-directed behavior, though the other two did not. An earlier study failed to find MSR in two Asian elephants; it was claimed this was because the mirror was too small. The study was conducted with the

Wildlife Conservation Society The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is a non-governmental organization headquartered at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, that aims to conserve the world's largest wild places in 14 priority regions. Founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological ...

using elephants at the

Bronx Zoo The Bronx Zoo (also historically the Bronx Zoological Park and the Bronx Zoological Gardens) is a zoo within Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York. It is one of the largest zoos in the United States by area and is the largest metropolitan zoo in ...

in New York. All three Asian elephants in the study were standing in front of a 2.5 m-by-2.5 m mirror—they inspected the rear and brought food close to the mirror for consumption. Evidence of elephant self-recognition was shown when one (and only one) elephant, Happy, repeatedly touched a painted ''X'' on her head with her trunk, a mark which could only be seen in the mirror. Happy ignored another mark made with colorless paint that was also on her forehead to ensure she was not merely reacting to a smell or feeling. Frans de Waal, who ran the study, stated, "These parallels between humans and elephants suggest a convergent cognitive evolution possibly related to complex society and cooperation."

Birds

(''Pica pica''): The Eurasian magpie is the first non-mammal to have been found to pass the mirror test. In 2008, researchers applied a small red, yellow, or black sticker to the throat of five Eurasian magpies, where they could be seen by the bird only by using a mirror. The birds were then given a mirror. The feel of the sticker on their throats did not seem to alarm the magpies. However, when the birds with colored stickers glimpsed themselves in the mirror, they scratched at their throats—a clear indication that they recognised the image in the mirror as their own. Those that received a black sticker, invisible against the black neck feathers, did not react. In 2020, researchers attempted to closely replicate the 2008 study with a larger number of magpies, and failed to confirm the results of the 2008 study. The researchers stated that while these results did not disprove the 2008 study, the failure to replicate indicated the results of the original study should be treated with caution. * Some pigeons can pass the mirror test after training in the prerequisite behaviors. In 1981, American psychologist B. F. Skinner found that pigeons are capable of passing a highly modified mirror test after extensive training. In the experiment, a pigeon was trained to look in a mirror to find a response key behind it, which the pigeon then turned to peck to obtain food. Thus, the pigeon learned to use a mirror to find critical elements of its environment. Next, the pigeon was trained to peck at dots placed on its feathers; food was, again, the consequence of touching the dot. The latter training was accomplished in the absence of the mirror. The final test was placing a small bib on the pigeon—enough to cover a dot placed on its lower belly. A control period without the mirror present yielded no pecking at the dot. When the mirror was revealed, the pigeon became active, looked in the mirror and then tried to peck on the dot under the bib. However, untrained pigeons have never passed the mirror test.

Fish

* According to a study done in 2019,

cleaner wrasses The wrasses are a family, Labridae, of marine fish, many of which are brightly colored. The family is large and diverse, with over 600 species in 81 genera, which are divided into 9 subgroups or tribes. They are typically small, most of them le ...

were the first fish observed to pass the mirror test. The

bluestreak cleaner wrasse The bluestreak cleaner wrasse, ''Labroides dimidiatus'', is one of several species of cleaner wrasses found on coral reefs from Eastern Africa and the Red Sea to French Polynesia. Like other cleaner wrasses, it eats parasites and dead tissue ...

(''Labroides dimidiatus'') is a tiny tropical reef

cleaner fish Cleaner fish are fish that show a specialist feeding strategy by providing a service to other species, referred to as clients, by removing dead skin, ectoparasites, and infected tissue from the surface or gill chambers. This example of cleaning ...

. Cleaner fish have an adapted evolutionary behavior in which they remove parasites and dead tissue from larger fish. When put through the mirror test, using a benign brown gel injected into the skin of the fish, and resembling a parasite, the cleaner wrasse showed all the behaviors of passing through the phases of the test. When provided with a colored tag in a modified mark test, the fish attempted to scrape off this tag by scraping their bodies on the side of the mirror. Gordon Gallup believes the cleaner wrasses' behavior can be attributed to something other than recognizing itself in a mirror. Gallup has argued that a cleaner wrasse's job in life is to be aware of ectoparasites on the bodies of other fish, so it would be hyper aware of the fake parasite that it noticed in the mirror, perhaps seeing it as a parasite that it needed to clean off of a different fish. The authors of the study retort that because the fish checked itself in the mirror before and after the scraping, this means that the fish has self-awareness and recognizes that its reflection belongs to its own body. The cleaner wrasses, when tested, spent a large amount of time with the mirror when they were first getting acquainted with it, without any training. Importantly, the cleaner wrasses performed scraping behavior with the colored mark, and they did not perform the same scraping behavior without the colored mark in the presence of the mirror, nor when they were with the mirror and had a transparent mark. Following various objections, the researchers published a follow-up study in 2022, where they did the mirror test on a larger sample of wrasses and experimented with several marking techniques. The new results "increase

he researchers' He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

confidence that cleaner fish indeed pass the mark test", although wrasses attempted to scrape off the mark only when it resembled a parasite. *In 2016 a modified mirror test done on two captive

Manta ray Manta rays are large rays belonging to the genus '' Mobula'' (formerly its own genus ''Manta''). The larger species, '' M. birostris'', reaches in width, while the smaller, '' M. alfredi'', reaches . Both have triangular pectoral fins, horn-s ...

s (''Mobula birostris'') showed that they exhibited behavior associated with

(i.e. contingency checking and unusual self-directed behavior).

Animals that have failed

Some animals that have reportedly failed the classic MSR test include:

Mammals

= Carnivorans

= *

Sea lion Sea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear flaps, long foreflippers, the ability to walk on all fours, short and thick hair, and a big chest and belly. Together with the fur seals, they make up the family Otariidae, eared seals. ...

s (''Zalophus californianus'') *

Giant panda The giant panda (''Ailuropoda melanoleuca''), also known as the panda bear (or simply the panda), is a bear species endemic to China. It is characterised by its bold black-and-white coat and rotund body. The name "giant panda" is sometimes u ...

(''Ailuropoda melanoleuca''): In one study, 34 captive giant pandas of a wide range of ages were tested. None of the pandas responded to the mark and many reacted aggressively towards the mirror, causing the researchers to consider the pandas viewed their reflection as a

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organ ...

. * Dogs (''Canis familiaris''): Dogs either treat the image as another animal, or come to ignore it completely.

= Primates

= *

Stump-tailed macaque The stump-tailed macaque (''Macaca arctoides''), also called the bear macaque, is a species of macaque native to South Asia and Southeast Asia. In India, it occurs south of the Brahmaputra River, in the northeastern part of the country. Its range ...

(''Macaca arctoides'') *

Crab-eating macaque The crab-eating macaque (''Macaca fascicularis''), also known as the long-tailed macaque and referred to as the cynomolgus monkey in laboratories, is a cercopithecine primate native to Southeast Asia. A species of macaque, the crab-eating macaqu ...

(''Macaca fascicularis'') *

Rhesus macaque The rhesus macaque (''Macaca mulatta''), colloquially rhesus monkey, is a species of Old World monkey. There are between six and nine recognised subspecies that are split between two groups, the Chinese-derived and the Indian-derived. Generally b ...

(''Macaca mulatta''): However, it has been reported that rhesus monkeys exhibit other behaviours in response to a mirror that indicate self-recognition. Rhesus macaques have been observed to use mirrors to study otherwise-hidden parts of their bodies, such as their genitals and implants in their heads. It has been suggested this demonstrates at least a partial self-awareness, although this is disputed. *

Black-and-white colobus Black-and-white colobuses (or colobi) are Old World monkeys of the genus ''Colobus'', native to Africa. They are closely related to the red colobus monkeys of genus '' Piliocolobus''. There are five species of this monkey, and at least eight subs ...

(''Colobus guereza'') *

Capuchin monkey The capuchin monkeys () are New World monkeys of the subfamily Cebinae. They are readily identified as the " organ grinder" monkey, and have been used in many movies and television shows. The range of capuchin monkeys includes some tropical fores ...

(''Cebus apella'') *

Hamadryas baboon The hamadryas baboon (''Papio hamadryas'' ) is a species of baboon within the Old World monkey family. It is the northernmost of all the baboons, being native to the Horn of Africa and the southwestern region of the Arabian Peninsula. These reg ...

(''Papio hamadryas'') *

Cotton-top tamarin The cotton-top tamarin (''Saguinus oedipus'') is a small New World monkey weighing less than . This New World monkey can live up to 24 years, but most of them die by 13 years. One of the smallest primates, the cotton-top tamarin is easily recog ...

(''Saguinus oedipus'')

Birds

Grey parrot The grey parrot (''Psittacus erithacus''), also known as the Congo grey parrot, Congo African grey parrot or African grey parrot, is an Old World parrot in the family Psittacidae. The Timneh parrot ''(Psittacus timneh)'' once was identified a ...

* New Caledonian crow * Jackdaw * Great tit (''Parus major'')

Fish

*The Tanganyikan cichlid, or daffodil cichlid ('' Neolamprologus pulcher''), is another fish that has failed the mirror test, according to a study done in 2017. Although not

like the

, these fish are typically regarded as socially intelligent and can recognize conspecifics in their social groups. Therefore, they would theoretically make good candidates for the mirror test, but they ended up failing. Similar to the cleaner wrasse, the Tanganyikan cichlid first exhibited signs of aggression towards the mirrored image. After a colored mark was injected, the researchers found no increased scraping or trying to remove the mark, and the cichlids did not observe the side with the mark any longer than it would have otherwise. This demonstrates a lack of contingency checking and means that the Tanganyikan cichlid did not pass the mirror test.

Cephalopods

Octopus An octopus ( : octopuses or octopodes, see below for variants) is a soft-bodied, eight- limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefis ...

es oriented towards their image in a mirror, but no difference in their behaviour (as observed by humans) was seen in this condition when compared with a view of other octopuses.

Animals that may pass

Mammals

= Primates

Gibbon Gibbons () are apes in the family Hylobatidae (). The family historically contained one genus, but now is split into four extant genera and 20 species. Gibbons live in subtropical and tropical rainforest from eastern Bangladesh to Northeast Indi ...

(g. ''Hylobates'', ''Symphalangus'' and ''Nomascus'') have failed to show self-recognition in at least two tests. However, modified mirror tests with three species of

gibbon Gibbons () are apes in the family Hylobatidae (). The family historically contained one genus, but now is split into four extant genera and 20 species. Gibbons live in subtropical and tropical rainforest from eastern Bangladesh to Northeast Indi ...

s (''Hylobates syndactylus'', ''H. gabriellae'', ''H. leucogenys'') in 2000 showed convincing evidence of self-recognition even though the animals failed the standard version of the mirror test.

= Pigs

= Pigs can use visual information seen in a mirror to find food, and show evidence of self-recognition when presented with their reflections. In a 2009 experiment, seven of the eight pigs tested were able to find a bowl of food hidden behind a wall and revealed using a mirror. The eighth pig looked behind the mirror for the food.

BBC Earth BBC Earth is a brand used by BBC Studios since 2009 to market and distribute the BBC's natural history content to countries other than the United Kingdom. BBC Studios is the commercial arm of the public service broadcaster. BBC Earth commerc ...

also showed the food bowl test, and the "matching shapes to holes" test, in the ''Extraordinary Animals'' series.

Fish

Two captive

giant manta rays The giant oceanic manta ray, giant manta ray, or oceanic manta ray (''Mobula birostris'') is a species of ray in the family Mobulidae, and the largest type of ray in the world. It is circumglobal and is typically found in tropical and subtropica ...

showed frequent, unusual and repetitive movements in front of a mirror, suggesting contingency checking. They also showed unusual self-directed behaviors when exposed to the mirror. Manta rays have the largest brains of all fish. In 2016, Csilla Ari tested captive manta rays at the Atlantis Aquarium in the Bahamas by exposing them to a mirror. The manta rays appeared to be extremely interested in the mirror. They behaved strangely in front the mirror, including doing flips and moving their fins. They also blew bubbles. They did not interact with the reflection as if it were another manta ray; they did not try to socialize with it. However, only an actual mirror test can determine if they actually recognize their own reflections, or if they are just demonstrating exploratory behavior. A classic mirror test has yet to be done on manta rays. Another fish that may pass the mirror test is the common archerfish, '' Toxotes chatareus''. A study in 2016 showed that archerfish can discriminate between human faces. Researchers showed this by testing the archerfish, which spit a stream of water at an image of a face when they recognized it. The archerfish would be trained to expect food when it spat at a certain image. When the archerfish was shown images of other human faces, the fish did not spit. They only spit for the image that they recognized. Archerfish normally, in the wild, use their spitting streams to knock down prey from above into the water below. The study showed that archerfish could be trained to recognize a three-dimensional image of one face compared to an image of a different face and would spit at the face when they recognized it. The archerfish were even able to continue recognizing the image of the face even when it was rotated 30, 60 and 90°.

Humans

The rouge test is a version of the mirror test used with human children. Using rouge makeup, an experimenter surreptitiously places a dot on the face of the child. The children are then placed in front of a mirror and their reactions are monitored; depending on the child's development, distinct categories of responses are demonstrated. This test is widely cited as the primary measure for mirror self-recognition in human children.Sedikides, C. & Spencer, S.J. (Eds.) (2007). ''The Self''. New York: Psychology Press

Developmental reactions

From the ages of 6 to 12 months, the child typically sees a "sociable playmate" in the mirror's reflection. Self-admiring and embarrassment usually begin at 12 months, and at 14 to 20 months, most children demonstrate avoidance behaviors. Finally, at 18 months, half of children recognize the reflection in the mirror as their own and by 20 to 24 months, self-recognition climbs to 65%. Children do so by evincing mark-directed behavior; they touch their own noses or try to wipe the marks off. Self-recognition in mirrors apparently is independent of familiarity with reflecting surfaces. In some cases, the rouge test has been shown to have differing results, depending on sociocultural orientation. For example, a Cameroonian Nso sample of infants 18 to 20 months of age had an extremely low amount of self-recognition outcomes at 3.2%. The study also found two strong predictors of self-recognition: object stimulation (maternal effort of attracting the attention of the infant to an object either person touched) and mutual eye contact. A strong correlation between self-concept and object permanence have also been demonstrated using the rouge test.

Implications

The rouge test is a measure of self-concept; the child who touches the rouge on his own nose upon looking into a mirror demonstrates the basic ability to understand self-awareness. Animals, young children, and people who have gained sight after being blind from birth, sometimes react to their reflection in the mirror as though it were another individual. Theorists have remarked on the significance of this period in a child's life. For example,

psychoanalyst PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: + . is a set of Theory, theories and Therapy, therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a bo ...

Jacques Lacan used a similar test in marking the mirror stage when growing up.Lacan, J., ''Some reflections on the Ego'' in ''Écrits'', org. published 1949. Current views of the self in psychology position the self as playing an integral part in human motivation, cognition, affect, and

social identity Identity is the qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, and/or expressions that characterize a person or group.Compare ''Collins Dictionary of Sociology'', quoted in In sociology, emphasis is placed on collective identity, in which ...

Methodological flaws

There is some debate as to the interpretation of the results of the mirror test, and researchers in one study have identified some potential problems with the test as a means of gauging self-awareness in young children and animals. Proposing that a self-recognizing child or animal may not demonstrate mark-directed behavior because they are not motivated to clean up their faces, thus providing incorrect results, the study compared results of the standard rouge test methodology against a modified version of the test. In the classic test, the experimenter first played with the children, making sure that they looked in the mirror at least three times. Then, the rouge test was performed using a dot of rouge below the child's right eye. For their modified testing, the experimenter introduced a doll with a rouge spot under its eye and asked the child to help clean the doll. The experimenter would ask up to three times before cleaning the doll themselves. The doll was then put away, and the mirror test performed using a rouge dot on the child's face. These modifications were shown to increase the number of self-recognisers. The results uncovered by this study at least suggest some issues with the classic mirror test; primarily, that it assumes that children will recognize the dot of rouge as abnormal and attempt to examine or remove it. The classic test may have produced false negatives, because the child's recognition of the dot did not lead to them cleaning it. In their modified test, in which the doll was cleaned first, they found a stronger relationship between cleaning the doll's face and the child cleaning its own face. The demonstration with the doll, postulated to demonstrate to the children what to do, may lead to more reliable confirmation of self-recognition. On a more general level, it remains debatable whether recognition of one's mirror image implies self-awareness. Likewise, the converse may also be false—one may hold self-awareness, but not present a positive result in a mirror test.

Robots

In 2012, early steps were taken to make a

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be ...

pass the mirror test.

References

External links

List of animals who passed the mirror test and promising candidates on animalcognition.org

The World First Self-Aware Robot and the Success of Mirror Image Cognition
(Lecture at the Karlsruhe University and the Munich University, Germany), 8 November 2006.

Elephants' jumbo mirror ability (BBC News)
*

* ttp://www.conscious-robots.com/2010/01/08/can-a-robot-pass-the-mirror-test/ Can a robot pass the mirror test? – Raúl Arrabales Moreno 2010-01-08 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mirror Test Cognitive tests Consciousness studies Mirrors Perception Self Articles containing video clips

Method and history

Implication and alternate explanations

Criticism

Non-human animals

Animals that have passed

Mammals

= Cetaceans

= Primates

= Proboscidea

Birds

Fish

Animals that have failed

Mammals

= Carnivorans

= Primates

Birds

Fish

Cephalopods

Animals that may pass

Mammals

= Primates

= Pigs

Fish

Humans

Developmental reactions

Implications

Methodological flaws

Robots

See also

References

External links