Elephants Recognize Themselves in Mirrors

[SeeingRed]

Not sure if this should be in N&P, but here goes:

Forbes

Elephants Recognize Themselves in Mirrors
10.30.06, 12:00 AM ET

FRIDAY, Oct. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest pachyderm of them all?

U.S. scientists say they've found the first evidence that elephants can recognize themselves in mirrors, which means they join humans, apes and dolphins in a select group of species that have that ability.

The study found female elephants closely inspecting their reflections in a mirror and apparently not mistaking it for another elephant.

The finding, by researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University and the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, suggests convergent evolution with humans.

Self-recognition in a mirror is believed to be related to empathic tendencies (being able to identify and understand others' feelings) and the ability of an individual to distinguish oneself from others, a characteristic that evolved independently in several branches of animals, the scientists said.

Due to elephants' social complexity, it had previously been predicted that they would be able to recognize themselves in mirrors.

"We see highly complex behaviors such as self-awareness and self-other distinction in intelligent animals with well-established social systems," researcher Joshua Plotnik, of the Yerkes Center, said in a prepared statement.

"The social complexity of the elephant, its well-known altruistic behavior and, of course, its huge brain, made the elephant a logical candidate species for testing in front of a mirror," Plotnik said.

This study included three female elephants at the Bronx Zoo in New York who were exposed to a jumbo-sized mirror eight feet high by eight feet wide. When they were in front of the mirror, the elephants tested the image by making repetitive body movements and inspecting themselves, such as putting their trunks inside their mouths, a part of their body they usually can't see.

The elephants did not react socially to their images and did not seem to mistake their reflection for that of other elephants.

"Elephants have been tested in front of mirrors before, but previous studies used relatively small mirrors kept out of the elephants' reach. This study is the first to test the animals in front of a huge mirror they could touch, rub against and try to look behind," Plotnik said.

The study appears in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

If true, I'd think that that registers as sentience on a basic level - or sapience, I suppose.

[Pick]

I certainly hope that this is true and that it has a lot more follow-up data to truly verify its veracity.

[Rye]

If true, I'd think that that registers as sentience on a basic level - or sapience, I suppose.

Sentience is merely the reaction to stimuli in a single conscious/aware entity, it is not abstraction, self awareness, etc, it is pretty much just sensory perception. Sapience is human-like mental ability and has a whole host of extra faculties involved in its definition, including self awareness.

The mirror test shows self awareness, which is learned (a baby won't recognise itself, for instance, while a young child or chimp will recognise themselves and work out where a paper dot has been stuck on them with a mirror image and take it off, which is really quite complex and involves lots of faculties working as one). Elephants are known for being smart, tool users and being very social. Social interaction and communication on big interpersonal scales requires a lot of brainpower. In human (and presumably other animals) simulations and second guessing are parts of the communication process and they require a lot of funky shit going on.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Are there degrees of self-awareness? The research I have been reading seems very vague on this concept, and I keep getting different answers from different studies.


So far, some have said there are, some have said they aren't, and yet again, some have said there are degrees of the concept. They break it down into I think three or four subtypes.

Some say that babies are not self-aware, and other's claim they are. I think it's an important thing to know, because a major part of moral personhood status is the capacity for generating complex preferences tied to the self/self awareness.

[FTeik]

And they create art:

http://www.elephantart.com/catalog/thailand.php

[Chiaroscuro]

I don't know, I'm inclined to be skeptical--I'd like to see them do some more studies first.
The actual test, at least for apes, monkeys, and babies, is fairly simple. The scientist puts a blob of odorless red goop on the subject's forehead, then puts him or her in front of a mirror. If the subject tries to wipe the blob off the mirror, they are not self-aware; if they wipe it off themselves, then they are.
Monkeys failed this test, as did human babies under the age of (I think) one and a half years. Adult chimps, however, passed it.
How you would conduct this test with elephants, I really don't know, but I find it questionable that elephants would be on a level with dolphins and chimps in self-awareness, when they haven't been in most other areas.

[Rye]

I've seen a video of what they did. They got a test elephant, subtly daubed a white X above its eye, where they'd only be able to see it in a mirror, put a mirror in the enclosure, at least one of the elephants used its trunk and ears to try and get rid of it.

[Chiaroscuro]

Ah. That's cool. But how many elephants actually wiped it off themselves? Did any try to wipe it off the mirror? Did others just ignore it? What were the stats?

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Someone said that very young babies cannot do it, but adult chimps could, but monkies at any age could not.

Now, when a certain creature cannot do it, does that indicate some current deficit in brain deveopment or is it merely an experiental issue?

It would seem to me that in the case of the monkies, it would be a lack of capacity, whereas the chimps at a certain age could do it like the humans. Does that mean at earlier ages, when they cannot, it's lack of maturation or merely lack of experience?

[Pick]

Ah. That's cool. But how many elephants actually wiped it off themselves? Did any try to wipe it off the mirror? Did others just ignore it? What were the stats?

Obviously, more research data is needed for a complete analysis. However, even this small amount of information could be extremely telling, as it has been with other species.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Ah. That's cool. But how many elephants actually wiped it off themselves? Did any try to wipe it off the mirror? Did others just ignore it? What were the stats?

This explains what happened in much greater detail:

Elephant Self-Awareness Mirrors Humans
By Charles Q. Choi
Special to LiveScience
posted: 30 October 2006
05:03 pm ET


Elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror, joining only humans, apes and dolphins as animals that possess this kind of self-awareness, researchers now report.

"This would seem to be a trait common to and independently evolved by animals with large, complex brains, complex social lives and known capacities for empathy and altruism, even though the animals all have very different kinds of brains," researcher Diana Reiss, a senior cognitive research scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society in Brooklyn, N.Y., told LiveScience.

Hopefully, she added, this will encourage people to protect elephants.

The researchers began their experiment by introducing three adult female Asian elephants to a mirror [image] eight feet wide by eight feet high constructed in a private area of their yard at the Bronx Zoo. Making the jumbo-sized mirror as "elephant-resistant" as they could was a challenge, given that "elephants love to constantly push with their heads and manipulate anything they can," explained researcher Joshua Plotnik, a graduate student at Emory University in Atlanta.

"We used a mirror made of plastic -- if we used glass, it would have broken very easily -- and framed it with steel and bolted it to the wall, but we were still worried they'd bring it down," Plotnik told LiveScience. "Luckily that didn't happen. We never saw them attempt to rip the mirror off. They seemed too interested in it to do that."

One of the first things animals capable of recognizing themselves in mirrors do is try exploring the other side of the mirror. Elephants Maxine and Patty did this [video]: they swung their trunks over and behind the wall on which the mirror was mounted, kneeled in front of it to get their trunks under and behind it, and even attempted to physically climb the wall. Remarkably, the elephants did not appear to at first mistake their reflections as strangers and try to greet them, as many animals that can recognize themselves normally do.

"Elephants have been tested in front of mirrors before, but previous studies used relatively small mirrors kept out of the elephants' reach," he added. "This study is the first to test the animals in front of a huge mirror they could touch, rub against and try to look behind."

As they begin to understand mirrors, animals that can recognize their reflections try repeating actions in front of it. The elephants, for example, waved their trunks around and moved their heads in and out of the mirror view.

Finally, once animals recognize reflections as their own, they use mirrors to investigate their own bodies [video]. On more than one occasion, the elephants stuck their trunks into their mouths in front of the mirror, and Maxine used her trunk to pull her ear slowly toward the mirror.

"As a result of this study, the elephant now joins a cognitive elite," said researcher Frans de Waal at Emory University.

One elephant, named Happy, passed the final test of repeatedly touching an X painted on her forehead [image], a place she could not see without a mirror. As a control, when a colorless paint was used to draw the X, Happy didn't bother with it. While only Happy passed this test [video], the researchers noted that more than half of chimpanzees examined typically fail this test.

"Also, while primates constantly groom themselves, elephants love to throw mud on themselves and bathe in dust, so the other elephants might have seen that mark on their heads and not cared," Plotnik said.

Future research can focus on when elephants first develop this capacity. "We first see evidence of humans recognizing their reflections when they are 18 months old," Reiss said.

The scientists reported their findings online October 30 via the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

(Emphasis mine) So, in short, they all recognized themselves in the mirror. But apparently marking an elephant with an "X" might not matter much to an elephant, given that they enjoy covering themselves in dirt and mud to begin with.

[wolveraptor]

I'm surprised that many of them responded to the mirror at all. Don't elephants have poor eyesight?

Which brings up the following question: How would you alter the sapience litmus test for a blind or near-blind species?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I'm surprised that many of them responded to the mirror at all. Don't elephants have poor eyesight?

Which brings up the following question: How would you alter the sapience litmus test for a blind or near-blind species?

They don't have the best eyesight, no. That's why the researchers had to use big, elephant-sized mirrors to get a response out of them in this particular experiment.

[Sam Or I]

Heres another intresting Elephant article about them being curious about other dead elephants:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8209


Don't some birds also ID themselves in the mirror? I think crows and parrots do.

[Zor]

Add another nail is hammered into the "Humanity is Special" coffin.

Zor

[Lord Woodlouse]

Add another nail is hammered into the "Humanity is Special" coffin.

Zor

When elephants build cities and land on the moon I'll stop considering ourselves especially special as Earthlings go.

[SeeingRed]

Add another nail is hammered into the "Humanity is Special" coffin.

Zor

When elephants build cities and land on the moon I'll stop considering ourselves especially special as Earthlings go.

It's a difference in degree, not in kind. Many arguments that are given in support of the "humanity is special" idea rely on the notions that human uniquely experience such things as self-awareness, consciousness, self-recognition, etc etc. You're suggesting a difference of a different type; namely, that humans use tools much more extensively and effectively than other animals, which is certainly true. But findings like these severely undermine the credibility of arguments such as the former. Theoretically, if another species acquired/posessed the same intellectual capacity and experiences as humans did, given enough time they would be able to achieve similar results.