4 ms·
There are a lot of steps not related to self-awareness involved in investigating oneself in a mirror. For example, with the "spot" test, the animal has to: 1)
by tbabb 10y ago
There are a lot of steps not related to self-awareness involved in investigating oneself in a mirror. For example, with the "spot" test, the animal has to:
1) Be interested enough in the reflection to watch it long enough to see the spot
2) Be observant enough to notice the spot
3) Be curious enough to care about the spot
4) Understand that the animal in the mirror is itself
5) Collapse the logical chain that: (a) if the animal in the mirror has a spot, and (b) the animal in the mirror is itself, then therefore (c) it has a spot.
6) Think to use the mirror as a tool for investigation.
An animal could plausibly get (4) without getting enough of the other steps to actually start investigating. To me, (5) seems like the most difficult leap of intelligence of all of these, and it doesn't really have to do with self-awareness-- it's more about complex inference and logical reasoning. (6) also suggests that the capability for tool use might be a prerequisite.
Most cat owners understand (including other posters in this thread) that cats know the difference between their own reflection and another real cat seen through a window. Disinterest is one explanation (though that doesn't happen with actual cats in a window), but I don't think cats' failure in the "spot" experiment is enough to exclude that they are indeed capable of (4).
On top of that, I don't think this experiment says anything at all about the nature or presence of "consciousness".
- krick 10y agoThis also seems very plausible to me. I've seen my cat to be frightened by sudden appearance in the mirror just to relax in about 0.5 s. Clearly not enough time to decide if the creature in the mirror is harmless, but apparently enough to recognize himself. The second time he faces mirror in this location he isn't scared anymore. This isn't at all similar to how he reacts to actual cats. Also, it isn't the same with all cats I've known. Some seem to be more clueless than others.
- literallycancer 10y ago>I've seen my cat to be frightened by sudden appearance in the mirror just to relax in about 0.5 s. Clearly not enough time to decide if the creature in the mirror is harmless.. Why isn't it enough time to decide whether the reflection is harmless? Not my area of expertise, but I'd expect humans to be able to parse a face or a even posture for signs of imminent aggression in that time easily. Many other animals should be able to do the same. I'd say we are highly optimized for this, since the biggest threat to humans have been other humans for most of history, and quick judgement can literally decide who lives and who dies.
- tbabb 10y agoTrue, though if the reaction time / interest level is different from the reaction to a real (non-threatening) cat, it can still tell you something. (In my experience they're pretty clearly different).
- ysavir 10y agoUh, nope, if I find a body-sized mirror in an unexpected place, I'll probably have a half second of "stranger dang-" before I cool down.
- NobleLie 10y agoWell, the reaction of a frightened cat isnt, by design, one that appears friendly. They usually jump and get a puffy tail. If the cat observes his reflection jumping and getting a puffy tail, itd make sense for the cat to assume danger, for he just ran into another cat whom got freaked out seeing him. That is, if the cat doesnt recognize itself rather quickly
- Sharlin 10y agoI don't think it needs to realize the cat in the mirror is itself - it just needs to realize that this is another one of those weird human thingies that show things that aren't real.
- jrimbault 10y agoI've known a particular cat who masturbated in front of a mirror. Outside of that particular... peculiarity, he was always combing himself, also in front of the mirror.
- mannykannot 10y agoStep four is the point of the experiment, which is to show that some non-human animals get it. No assumption is made about what animals that do not self-examine know.