Talk:Mirror test
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http://www.jhu.edu/~newslett/05-3-01/Science/2.html claims " The "mirror test" was devised in 1970by Dr. Gordon G. Gallup Jr., a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Albany." however the animal cognition article says "The best known research technique in this area is the mirror test devised by Donald Griffin". I'm not sure which is correct.
- I am pretty certain that Gallup developed the test patrickw 17:31, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Not that it matters any
...but my dog Pismo knew how to use mirrors to determine when someone was approaching from behind. She was deaf in her later years, and still did it. -- Myria 05:01, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
gallup
- late reply, but: my dog once had the same insight; he was lying on the floor looking into a mirror on the back of a door, I was sitting behind him on a couch having fun silently waving and making faces and stuff, he was studying the mirror quizzically with tilted head and all that, then suddenly whips his head around and stares at me. never gave any sign of knowing the dog in the mirror was himself. Gzuckier (talk) 21:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] I propose...
that we cover a dog in an odourless solvent, and imprint the dog onto a wall. Then we can see whether the dog recognises its own scent
- how do you know if it recognizes it? But I think it would be cool to find a way to see if dogs are self-aware. I want to believe my dog is. That stupid mirror test discrimnates against dogs!
- Record a dog's bark and play it back?
[edit] Gorilla
If one gorilla (Koko) passes the mirror test, would it not be logical to infer that gorillas in general are self-aware? How many positive mirror tests does it take to classify a species as self-aware? --Bk0 (Talk) 04:34, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
- this sounds reasonable to me. Can you offer a citation for Koko passing the test? patrickw 12:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- Just because I can do multiply 10 digit numbers in my head doesn't mean that all humans can. I don't have any evidence but "Surprisingly, gorillas have not passed the test," from the article seems to indicate that some gorillas have failed? Which would just mean that Koko is a Stephen Hawking or someone like that...?
- You were taught to multiply. Self-awareness is an attribute of an entirely different nature. I don't know that Koko's single instance is enough to pass gorillas in general, but your analogy is not applicable. - Slow Graffiti 06:17, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
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- that is a good question, though. if there is one special individual that can figure something out, does that mean that "the species can"? re the gorillas, although the article now mentions this answer, i'll repeat that i read yesterday but have already forgotten where that a likely reason gorillas don't do well on the mirror test is because unlike the other apes that do well, they associate eye contact with aggressive threat and therefore look away from their reflection rather than study it and figure it out. the article went on to suggest that koko, being raised by people rather than gorillas, didn't have this problem. but it also cited baboons as a similar species, and a posting here (see below) takes the opposite position. that article on Koko cited just above, which is amazing to read, btw, doesn't come up with that answer, though. Gzuckier (talk) 21:14, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Dubious
IMHO the mirror test is as much a test of whether the animal in question understands what a mirror is. (I.e. that it is a device that enables one to see oneself.) Which has nothing to do with whether the animal understands what it itself is. Relatedly, why should the animal be expected to recognise itself, if it doesn't already know what it looks like and isn't familiar with how mirrors work? Ben Finn 19:35, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
- Because an intelegent animal will learn how a mirror works by watching how its reflection changes as it moves.
[edit] Pigeons
I know someone's gonna argue that Pigeons couldn't possibly pass this test. Hereis the proof. I'm as surprised as you are. JeffyP 20:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
- So, you train a pigeon to locate a blue dot in a mirror, then to peck at a blue dot. Aren't you just effectively demonstrating that a pigeon can be taught how to use a mirror to locate a blue dot to peck at? I fail to see how this would demonstrate that the pigeon can recognize that the dot is actually on themselves. As a test for a contrapositive, one would need to design a test where a pigeon is taught to peck at a blue dot on other pigeons, if then presented with a mirror, the bird were to peck at the blue dot reflection in the mirror, and not on itself, then it would be a nullification of the positive test presented above. As I see it, this would demonstrate that the bird simply performs what ever actions it is taught to perform. I would personally expect that to sucessfully pass the mirror test, that an animal/person would have to spontaneously, and without any foretraining, or instruction react to the stimulus on themselves in the mirror. Raise a pigeon around a mirror, thus establishing that it's comfortable with the mirror, then spontaneously present it with a blue dot on itself that it cannot see. If it responds to the image in the mirror, then it fails, and if it responds to the dot on itself, then it passes. --131.107.0.73 23:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
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- I think your test would be unnecessarily demanding, since none of the "passing" animals did anything besides locate a blue dot they saw in a mirror. (No passing animals were trained to distinguish between dots on themselves and dots on other animals). You're absolutely right that the study as it stands fails to prove self-awareness, just suggests that the subjects can understand reflectivity. I think you stumbled onto Skinner's very point. --Thomas B♘talk 02:27, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
The article suggests criticism of the Skinner study, but doesn't actually cite any. I'm sure it's out there somewhere, but I couldn't find the reference. I guess I should put a "citation needed" tag up. --Thomas B♘talk 02:27, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Parrots
Parrots (Alex (parrot)) are known to be very intelligent. Do they pass the test ? Perhaps a section with some species that don't pass the test would be interesting.
- I'm equally intrigued as to the test result of cats. - Slow Graffiti 06:18, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Dogs
Whoever these researchers are need their heads examined. My dog was fooled once by the mirror when she was a month old(barking at it and such), probably like any being would be if it had never seen one before. After that first time she watches people in the mirror in relation to herself and will get out of the way if she sees that she is in the way through the mirror. She also will move her ears back and tilt her head in anticipation when she sees you are about to pet her(the hand just about to touch her head that she can see through the mirror only); thus, she clearly understands that it is herself in the mirror. Same if you suddenly throw food behind her, she knows right where it is. Same if she sees a mouse. In fact her ability to use the mirror with such ease for observation and targeting is better than mine, which falls in line with what I believe to be better spacial perception by dogs than humans. I think we underestimate the raw intelligence of animals in general. The difference really lies in abstract thought and our language abilities that stem from that. They use dye? Not all animals are going to care about that! My Dog doesn't care when she gets a drastic haircut in the summer! - John 0905, 29 June 2006 (EST)
-- I did an experiment with my dog, daubing some paint on her, and then we went for a walk and played around for an hour so as to ensure she had forgotten about the daub of paint on her forhead. I then took her to the wall mirror and straight away out came the back leg trying to knock the paint off. Seems she passed it perfectly. I'm not sure at all what value this test has 124.178.173.81 (talk) 23:02, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Baboons
Baboons are actually one of the few monkey species that can recognize themselves in the mirror. Anyone who has seen a good baboon documentry would know that. One documentry showed the baboon's keen interest with themselves in old thrown away mirrors. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I can't find an exact article on it but it was in a documentry. Zachorious 08:10, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
- the article I was just reading yesterday and of course I've forgotten where, about the mirror test, cited baboons as another species like gorillas, that flunks the mirror test because they associate eye contact with aggression. Gzuckier (talk) 21:09, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Gallup nickname
Anon user 82.24.198.45 had renamed the professor Gordon 'The Gorilla' Gallup. I see no mention of such a nickname in his wikipedia article and this page is the only google result for "gordon the gorilla gallup". I removed it. Mwillia9 13:28, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 04:17, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] The most asinine test of consciousness around!
Seriously! There is no way yet to prove it, but this test is the most misguided one ever! Humans are so self-indulged, and whoever designed this test obviously has no philosophical knowledge, or at least none that they put to use! The question of consciousness is, as of writing this, is a philosophical one, not a scientific. You can't test for it with physical means, and you can't be sure that anyone has it but yourself. But out of all the practical tests for it, this one is THE WORST! TrevorLSciAct (talk) 01:13, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
