Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Through the looking glass, and what we (don’t) find there

  • Published:
Biology & Philosophy Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The conclusions drawn from mirror self-recognition studies, in which nonhuman animals are tested for whether they detect a mark on their bodies which can be observed only in the mirror, are based on several presuppositions. These include (1) that performance on the test is an indication of species wide rather than individual abilities, and (2) that all the animals which pass the test are demonstrating the presence of the same psychological ability. However, further details about the results of the test indicate that these presuppositions are false. Animals take the test as individuals, not as stand-ins for species, and members of different species rely on different cognitive mechanisms to pass the test. For nonhuman animals, passing the test seems to be a consequence of enculturation and practice.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Gallup (1970), p. 87.

  2. A third presupposition is also illustrated in Gallup’s conclusion, and in much subsequent work on MSR: that there is a hierarchy of cognitive skills with humans on one end, great apes slightly below humans, and other animals descending from there, demonstrating, as it were, a “scala naturae.” Critique of this presupposition is beyond the scope of this essay.

  3. Heyes argues that the mark test results are the consequence of anesthesia wearing off. Povinelli et al. (1997) dispute these arguments.

  4. See also Mitchell (1993, 2002).

  5. Other commentators have criticized these presuppositions, although typically without identifying the extent to which they underlie interpretations of the mark test. Thornton and Lukas (2012) and Herman and Call (2012) criticize the general idea that all animals of one species have the same abilities. de Veer and van den Bos (1999) addresses the idea that the animal taking the test must be properly motivated. And Zazzo (cited by de Lannoy 1993) identifies MSR as a human behavior that the mark test attempts to elucidate, rather than a demonstration of a behavior or skill already present in an animal’s repertoire.

  6. I return to Gorillas below.

  7. The list is from a summary of research presented by Tomasello and Call (1997). In the two decades since their summary, many animals have been tested and have passed. These include elephants, dolphins, magpies, and, as discussed below, some macaques.

  8. See, for example, Boccia (1994) and Mitchell (1995). As discussed above, there are more deflationary and more inflationary interpretations of the mark test results. The standard view, however, is that passing the test reveals the presence of a self-concept.

  9. This reasoning suggests that the presence of a stored self-representation is necessary for passing the mark test. Gallup and others (see, e.g., Byrne 1995; Keller et al. 2005; Shaffer 2005) also think having a stored self-representation is sufficient for passing the mark test. The existence of non-visually oriented animals gives good reason to be dubious of this latter claim (see, e.g., Bekoff 2005).

  10. Typically, this behavior emerges at approximately 18–24 months.

  11. There are too many citations echoing these presuppositions to include more than a very small selection here. The reader is invited to find her own examples in the literature.

  12. Might there have been selection for some other trait that explains an animal’s ability to recognize itself in the mirror? One possibility is that there may have been selection for certain social skills, which, when combined with human visual orientation, might lead to the kind of self-concept that allows those who have it to recognize themselves in the mirror. I consider this sort of possibility in “Outliers” section. However, as we shall see, this explanation for human MSR does not justify inferences from the performance of an individual nonhuman animal to conclusions about the entire species. Such inferences seem to rely on the claim that there was selection for whatever trait enables the animal to pass the mark test.

  13. See, for example, the quotes from Swartz and Evans, Prior et al, and Rajala et al above. Not only do these authors express the species-wide presupposition, they also assert that chimpanzees are among the species that have passed the test.

  14. Plotnik et al. (2006).

  15. The emphasis is mine.

  16. Broesch et al. also studied children from Canada, Fiji, Grenada, Peru, Saint Lucia, and the United States. While none of the results were as dramatic as the results found in Kenya, they found that the children raised in the non-Western cultures passed the test at significantly lower rates than did the US and Canadian children.

  17. Povinelli did not test all of these chimpanzees with the mark test. Of those that demonstrated compelling evidence of mirror self-recognition and that he tested, only half passed the mark test. Povinelli suggests that there may be self-recognition without passing the mark test.

  18. For reasons de Veer does not explain, she was unable to perform the mark test on the chimpanzees in her study.

  19. There is a third alternative: perhaps self-recognition is a trait that is within the normal range of phenotypic variation of a species. If that were the case, then we would not expect the trait to appear in every animal in the species. However, we also would not expect the pattern of self-recognition to be closely linked to enculturation (and practice). Because, as I argue below, self-recognition seems to be closely linked to enculturation (and practice), it seems unlikely that it appears in the phenotype as simply an indication of the phenotypic range of the species. At root here is a question about what we learn from experiments in which animals may demonstrate abilities that vary from those they would have in their natural environments. This is a fascinating question, but it is beyond the scope of this essay.

  20. Gallup (1970).

  21. Despite their clear use of mirrors to examine their bodies, and despite behavior that suggests that each monkey clearly recognized that the body it was examining was its own, these monkeys still failed the mark test. Perhaps the implants caused the monkeys to examine themselves in the mirror, but they did so without any independently stored self-representation.

  22. Boccia (1994), p. 352.

  23. In fact, Gallup and Anderson continue to hold the line, writing that “Positive evidence of self-recognition in great apes and the lack of evidence in monkeys suggest the emergence of a qualitative difference in self-awareness during primate evolution.”

  24. Patterson and Cohn (1994).

  25. The criterion of spontaneity is Anderson’s (1994).

  26. de Veer and van den Bos (1999, p. 465) speculate that certain social experiences common to enculturated apes, but not to their wild born conspecifics, develop certain brain structures that enhance “social-cognitive functioning.”

  27. de Veer et al. (2002, p. 4).

References

  • Allen M, Schwartz B (2008) Mirror self-recognition in a gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). Electron J Integr Biosci 5(1):19–23

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson J (1994) The monkey in the mirror: a strange conspecific. In: Parker ST, Mitchell R, Boccia ML (eds) Self-awareness in animals and humans: developmental perspectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Bekoff M (2005) Animal passions and beastly virtues. Temple University Press, Philadelphia

    Google Scholar 

  • Boccia M (1994) Mirror behavior in macaques. In: Parker ST, Mitchell R, Boccia ML (eds) Self-awareness in animals and humans: developmental perspectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Broesch T, Callaghan T, Henrich J, Murphy C, Rochat P (2011) Cultural variations in children’s mirror self-recognition. J Cross Cult Psychol 42(6):1018–1029

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Byrne R (1995) The thinking ape: evolutionary origins of intelligence. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Chang L, Fang Q, Zhang S, Poo M, Gong N (2015) Mirror-induced self-directed behaviors in rhesus monkeys after visual-somatosensory training. Curr Biol 25(2):212–217

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Lannoy J (1993) Two theories of a mental model of mirror-self-recognition: a response to Mitchell. New Ideas Psychol 11:337–338

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Veer M, van den Bos R (1999) A critical review of methodology and interpretation of mirror self-recognition research in nonhuman primates. Anim Behav 58:459–468

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Veer M, Gallup G, Theall L, van den Bos R, Povinelli D (2002) An 8-year longitudinal study of mirror self-recognition in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Neuropsychologia 1493:1–6

    Google Scholar 

  • de Waal F (1991) Complementary methods and convergent evidence in the study of primate social cognition. Behaviour 118:297–320

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallup G (1970) Chimpanzees: self-recognition. Science 167(3914):86–87

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallup G (1977) Self-recognition in primates. Am Psychol 32:329–338

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallup G, Anderson J (2011) Which primates recognize themselves in mirrors. PLoS Biol 9(3):e1001024

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallup G, Anderson J, Shillito D (2002) The mirror test. In: Bekoff M, Allen C, Burhgardt GM (eds) The cognitive animal: empirical and theoretical perspectives on animal cognition. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Herman E, Call J (2012) Are there geniuses among the apes? Philos Trans R Soc B 367:2753–2761

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heyes C (1994) Reflections on self-recognition in primates. Anim Behav 47:909–919

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heyes C (1998) Theory of mind in nonhuman primates. Behav Brain Sci 21:101–114

    Google Scholar 

  • Keller H, Yovsi R, Borke J, Kartner J, Jensen H, Papaligoura Z (2004) Developmental consequences of early parenting experiences: self-recognition and self-regulation in three cultural communities. Child Dev 75(6):1745–1760

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keller H, Kartner J, Borke J, Yovsi R, Kleis A (2005) Parenting styles and the development of the categorical self: a longitudinal study on mirror self-recognition in Cameroonian Nso and German families. Int J Behav Dev 29(6):496–504

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marten K, Psarakos S (1994) Evidence of self-awareness in the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus). In: Parker ST, Mitchell R, Boccia ML (eds) Self-awareness in animals and humans: developmental perspectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell R (1993) Mental models of mirror-self-recognition: two theories. New Ideas Psychol 11:295–325

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell R (1995) Evidence of dolphin self-recognition and the difficulties of interpretation. Conscious Cogn 4:229–234

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell R (2002) Kinesthetic-visual matching, imitation, and self-recognition. In: Bekoff M, Allen C, Burhgardt G (eds) The cognitive animal: empirical and theoretical perspectives on animal cognition. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Morin A (2003) Let’s face it. Evol Psychol 1:161–171

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morin A (2010) Self-recognition, theory-of-mind, and self-awareness: what side are you on? Laterality Asymmetries Body Brain Cogn 16(3):367–383

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nielson, M. (2009). The imitative behaviour of children and chimpanzees: a window on the transmission of cultural traditions. Rev Primatologie 1: document 5

  • Nielson M, Dissanayake C, Kashima Y (2003) A longitudinal investigation of self-other discrimination and the emergence of mirror self-recognition. Infant Behav Dev 26(2):213–226

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patterson F, Cohn R (1994) Self-recognition and self-awareness in lowland gorillas. In: Parker ST, Mitchell R, Boccia ML (eds) Self-awareness in animals and humans: developmental perspectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Plotnik J, de Waal F, Reiss D (2006) Self-recognition in an Asian elephant. Proc Natl Acad Sci 103(45):17053–17057

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Posada S, Colell M (2007) Another gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) recognizes himself in the mirror. Am J Primatol 69(5):576–583

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Povinelli D, Rulf A, Landau K, Bierschwale D (1993) Self-Recognition in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): distribution, ontogeny, and patterns of emergence. J Comp Psychol 107(4):347–372

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Povinelli D, Gallup G, Eddy T, Bierschwale D, Engstrom M, Perilloux H, Toxopeus I (1997) Chimpanzees recognize themselves in mirrors. Anim Behav 53(5):1083–1088

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prior H, Schwarz A, Güntürkün O (2008) Mirror-induced behavior in the magpie (Pica pica): evidence of self-recognition. PLoS Biol 6(8):e202

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rajala A, Reininger K, Lancaster K, Populin L (2010) Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) do recognize themselves in the mirror: implications for the evolution of self-recognition. PLoS ONE 5(9):e12865

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rochat P, Zahavi D (2011) The uncanny mirror: a re-framing of mirror self-experience. Conscious Cogn 20(2):204–213

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shaffer L (2005) From mirror self-recognition to the looking glass self: exploring the justification hypothesis. J Clin Psychol 61(1):47–65

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swartz K, Evans S (1991) Not all chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) show self-recognition. Primates 32(4):483–496

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson RL, Boatright-Horowitz SL (1994) The question of mirror-mediated self-recognition in apes and monkeys: some new results and reservations. In: Parker ST, Mitchell R, Boccia ML (eds) Self-awareness in animals and humans: developmental perspectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Thornton A, Lukas D (2012) Individual variation in cognitive performance: developmental and evolutionary perspectives. Philos Trans R Soc B 367:2773–2783

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello M, Call J (1997) Primate cognition. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello M, Call J (2004) The role of humans in the cognitive development of apes revisited. Anim Cogn 7:213–215

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

    Eric Saidel

Authors
  1. Eric Saidel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eric Saidel.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Saidel, E. Through the looking glass, and what we (don’t) find there. Biol Philos 31, 335–352 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-016-9522-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-016-9522-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation