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Have you ever caught your cat standing in the mirror and had the feeling that he didn’t seem to understand what he was seeing? This is an old question, and one that most people have doubts about. Are animals capable of recognizing themselves in front of a mirror? It sounds silly, but it is a question that holds some deeper meanings, after all we are talking about self-awareness.
If we start from a philosophical point of view, for example, self-consciousness is one of the primordial factors for the rational character of human beings. We are self-conscious when we are able to identify ourselves and recognize the differences that separate us from others – that which makes us individuals within a collective. Based on this reflection, what would it mean for an animal to be self-conscious enough to recognize itself in front of a mirror? Maybe a lot, maybe not so much.
The fact is that some studies have already revealed that some animals are certainly able to recognize themselves in front of a mirror. One such animal, for example, is the Asian elephant (Elephas Maximus). A 2006 study was able to identify strong reactions that proved that these animals recognize themselves in front of a mirror. Three elephants participated in the experiment, and the researchers made marks on each of them. What was observed was that all three elephants interacted with the mirror in a conscious way.
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The researchers’ idea was simple: if the elephants perceived the marks, would they be able to identify that these were their bodies? What was observed was that yes, the animals tried to interact with the stains, making it clear that there was an identifying relationship. Among the actions, the researchers reported that the elephants repeatedly brought their trunk to the stains, their trunk to their mouths.
“On more than one occasion, elephants either stuck their trunks in their mouths in front of the mirror or slowly and methodically moved their trunks from the top of the mirror’s surface downward. In one instance, Maxine placed her trunk with the tip in her mouth on the mirror, as if she were inspecting the inside of her oral cavity, and in another instance, she used her trunk to slowly pull her ear forward toward the mirror,” says an excerpt from the study.
Another study has also already attested that great apes (monkeys without tails) are able to recognize themselves in front of a mirror. In tests performed, the animals seemed to realize that the monkey in the mirror was themselves, resulting in an interesting interaction. At the same time, it was observed that elderly or too young individuals seemed to “fail” the test. The researchers believe that the older ones might already be in the process of losing their self-awareness, while the younger individuals had not yet developed it.
In addition to these animals, dolphins and orcas are also animals that have been shown to be able to recognize themselves. What researchers wonder about this data is what this means. How self-aware are these animals? Recognizing oneself in front of a mirror means that there is a body consciousness, but how much does this mean from a deeper point of view? For a firmer answer to this kind of questioning, further studies on the subject would be necessary.
