You're excited about the latest
developments or some new developments in
a very old and extremely famous, useful
scientific experiment. The so called
mirror test what's really remarkable
about it as advertised is that with this
simple test you can determine that an
individual of whatever species has some
self-awareness do we have a definition
of self-awareness right now it's it's
almost circular that self-awareness is
passed as the ability to contemplate
one's self I think that's basically what
it is this was a test that was started
by George Gallup he would argue that
only chimps orangutangs and humans past
a certain age are the only ones that
that passed this this test can you
describe the test for those who are not
been following since 1917 the test is
you put up a mirror so the first thing
is that they look at the mirror and they
say there's somebody else we once had a
mirror in at our cabin in Michigan and
we had this Robin this poor Robin spend
about two and a half hours attacking
itself in the mirror because the
interesting thing about the mirror test
right that there are bunch of animals
who see their own reflection think it's
another animal attack it and that's
friendly the first thing that nonhumans
do the thought is that at first you
don't realize that it's yourself I mean
how could you and that's a very
important point
okay so then after a while you realize
it's not somebody else and then you then
the then the thought is that you start
to do things to test this idea that you
know it moves when you move that you
might be that individual okay so then
the experimenter puts a mark on the
individuals face
so let's say I put a mark here and then
the animal goes and does this in a way
onto a mark that it could only detect by
seeing it in the mirror so how do you
make sure that the animal could only
detect it by seeing in the mirror well
first of all you have to wait and have
it without the mirror because if it can
feel it let's say it could feel it or
smelt the mark then it might do this
anyway and so you have to make sure it's
that's not what's going on and and a few
extensions of this test to non-primate
animals have have not done that control
toddlers do it easily it's a
developmental milestone but once they do
it they do it
John Rawling, who I took classes from
and I worked in his lab when I was an
undergraduate really great
neuroscientist and a fabulous person,
he's talking about one of his children
and he said that on on one occasion the
kid could not recognize himself in a
photograph and the next week could
recognize the reversed picture yeah so
yes so it happens on a dime but it
happens the reason we're talking about
this is because there's been a recent
report a scientist named Alex Jordan at
the Max Planck arguing that cleaner
wrasse and they are very clever very
social very clever fish that clean
bigger fish one of the things that
Jordan says is that if you put your hand
in the tank they'll start the cleaner
yeah he tried the mirror test with
cleaner wrasse what he saw was the the
typical progression so the first thing
was they tried to attack it they thought
it was somebody else
the second thing was that they would
swim him in what he says in in weird
movements using weird movements swimming
upside down the interpretation is to
check whether okay does that thing act
as though it's me this before it's been
marked and it's just sort of getting the
hang of what is this mirror thing.
They,
you know that they have to be exposed to
the mirror even the chips so then they
spend a lot of time in front of the
mirrors which was interesting and then
they were marked and they were marked
under the chin and after that they went
down and they scraped their chin and the
numbers are pretty impressive so a lot
of the of the fish did this to me for
instance of a it would mark the cleaner
wrasse underneath their skin I think it
was right they injected this thing under
the skin and and well the cleaner wrasse
did was to scrape their throats to get
to try and get it off the FLIR s were
used to seeing some little certain
Windermere once this mark was on would
scrape themselves against the bottom of
the tank George Gallup when I first read
this I thought he's very primate centric
he's a curmudgeon but then I read one of
his critiques he's got some very
important points that he makes the most
interesting one to think about is the
elephant one and this was done by
Plotnik and the wall fronts the wall
talks about this a lot he says you know
originally people tried to test the
mirror test with elephants and they used
a little mirror and the elephant said
who cares and so he got as probably only
Franz doll could do he got the funds to
make up a mirror an elephant sized
mirror and then at that point the
elephant's go up to it and what you see
in the video is that the elephant sees a
little mark and then pause that with its
trunk and it looks very convincing and
directed and really Gallup can't say
anything against that except that even
those same authors have not been able to
repeat it in other elephants and even
the same it was one of four elephants
that showed this one of four now that
doesn't to me that doesn't matter one
shows it that one is self-aware
somewhere in the vicinity of self-aware
but that same one did not show it
again when tested again or shows it
inconsistently when tested again so yeah
you know I just don't it's hard to know
what to make of that there are a bunch
of interesting methodological questions
about some of the tests that have been
done I'm particularly the stuff about
gorillas and how gorillas fail the test
but maybe not because even if the test
does test for self-awareness gorillas
may feel it not because the software but
because of unique aspects of gorilla
behavior what a gorilla doesn't would
never look another gorilla directly in
the face so the any gorilla in theory
would fail and gorillas do consistently
fail the test
that's one hypothesis as to why dualism
they feel it you think about cleaner
wrasse it's clear that they didn't care
about it when you put when the when
Jordan and his colleagues put a clear
glass and behind that glass was another
cleaner ass so if it wasn't themselves
they never developed this weird swimming
pattern another things that I found
really fascinating is our own visual
biases as humans because the mirror test
is a visual test but there are a lot of
animals out there for whom sight is not
their primary way of seeing the world
for example dogs are terrible at the
mirror test horowitz who did a factory
mirror test what world would that be she
gave these dogs their own odor or
another odor and they tagged that odor
with a mark what's the principle so dogs
spend more time with the order of their
own urine then with the odor of urine
from another dog but they react more to
their own odor when it has is marking it
it smells like me but there's something
wrong with it
Gallup doesn't like this and I either I
take his point I think his point is a
good one
he says if it's really a mirror thing if
they really think that their smelling
that because they're smelling it more
because it's their own self and they
somehow weirdly scented now why aren't
they smelling themselves why are they
smelling the stimulus and that's a good
point if I think you know if I think
that I stink I'm gonna do this I'm not
gonna go smell something else it aren't
smelling themselves and God knows dogs
smell themselves plenty there's a
question of whether or not the test
actually is testing for self-awareness
whether the things we're seeing are
effects of awareness self-awareness
it comes on a continuum so when my cat
watches me walking across the room and
gets out of the way so that I don't step
on her she's aware of where she is and
she moves herself
so Jordan says Alex Jordan this
individual who the scientist who did the
the cleaner wrasse experiment he says
moving your tail before it gets stepped
on or scraping a parasite off your
scales isn't the same as sitting and
pondering your place in the universe
this is obviously true but you know to
quote Darwin it's a matter of extent not
a matter of existence we give some
degree of self-awareness to other
animals then you know the human
exceptionalism takes another hit which
is all good for my point you know
self-awareness exists on a spectrum so
there's the Rastas maybe a little bit
toward one end of the spectrum of the
weekend with humans being on the
massively contemplating themselves in
the universe and right and and then
chimps are somewhere closer to two
humans but um but not unlikely that a
chimp will contemplate its place in the
galaxy it's unlikely that the chimp will
contemplate itself if you raise chimps
in isolation they don't pass the mirror
test and so they're it's not as though
they're recognizing themselves they're
recognizing that reflection of who they
are that they see in others around them
and so sociality has this
has this incredible influence on
whatever that this this entity that
we're gonna approximate by the word
self-awareness is I just have to quote a
former faculty member at the University
of Chicago George Herbert Mead
he was a philosopher and he said this
wonderful there could not be experience
of a self simply by itself there's this
trite adage that what people we get from
other people is another part of
ourselves and this is suggested that
that's in fact we get our own sense of
self from our interactions with others
and and this idea that you know who you
are by who you interact with is exactly
what we see in our rats one of the
things I like the most about this is
them doing these weird swim patterns to
try and I mean basically here are
cleaner wrasse doing an experiment what
the heck is going on in my world in my
environment oh oh I'm a cleaner wrasse
I'll do an experiment I'll just sweep
weird and see if it matches me what you
think is that the urge to science is
broadly writing throughout the animal
community and even if you don't have
fingers to rubber you're either there or
a trunk to rub the spot off with there's
still an instinct to do some kind of
experiment to see what's going on there
sciencing the day I bet it doesn't get
more optimistic than that Thank You
Becky
