Elephants Can Recognise Themselves in a Mirror
November 5th 2006 22:05
Elephants Can Recognise Themselves in a Mirror
According To the book I am reading, Robert Winston’s The Human Mind, babies develop the sense of self-awareness between 18 months and 2 years of age. A good experiment to test if your baby has developed a sense of ’me-self’ is by painting a red dot on the child’s nose and placing him/her in front of a mirror. Babies who have developed the sense will realise they have a mark on their nose and touch it, rub it or maybe even cry because they think they have a blemish! But babies who don’t see themselves as an entity will reach out and touch the mirror, only understanding that there is an external environment which can be acted upon but not realising that they are a person acting within that environment.
Chimps can develop this sense of self-awareness but much later, at around 6 years of age. Dogs however, may try and form ‘friends’ with the ‘other dog’ they see in the mirror. Until recently, this sense was thought to only exist with humans and great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans) but in 2001, Diana Reiss of Columbia University found this ability in dolphins.
The New Scientist reported last week that Reiss showed that dolphins tended to position themselves to view a mark on their bodies that would not otherwise be visible, showing they could also recognise their own reflections. And now, Reiss has tried a trick with Asian elephants. She placed a huge mirror next to elephants at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, and the elephants passed the test by staring at their reflections and touching the mark on their heads.
The dolphin’s and elephant’s abilities to obtain self-awareness may be attributed to their large brains, like us humans.
Sources: The New Scentist and Robert Winston's The Human Mind
Image of the GNU Free Documentation License
According To the book I am reading, Robert Winston’s The Human Mind, babies develop the sense of self-awareness between 18 months and 2 years of age. A good experiment to test if your baby has developed a sense of ’me-self’ is by painting a red dot on the child’s nose and placing him/her in front of a mirror. Babies who have developed the sense will realise they have a mark on their nose and touch it, rub it or maybe even cry because they think they have a blemish! But babies who don’t see themselves as an entity will reach out and touch the mirror, only understanding that there is an external environment which can be acted upon but not realising that they are a person acting within that environment.
Chimps can develop this sense of self-awareness but much later, at around 6 years of age. Dogs however, may try and form ‘friends’ with the ‘other dog’ they see in the mirror. Until recently, this sense was thought to only exist with humans and great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans) but in 2001, Diana Reiss of Columbia University found this ability in dolphins.
The New Scientist reported last week that Reiss showed that dolphins tended to position themselves to view a mark on their bodies that would not otherwise be visible, showing they could also recognise their own reflections. And now, Reiss has tried a trick with Asian elephants. She placed a huge mirror next to elephants at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, and the elephants passed the test by staring at their reflections and touching the mark on their heads.
The dolphin’s and elephant’s abilities to obtain self-awareness may be attributed to their large brains, like us humans.
Sources: The New Scentist and Robert Winston's The Human Mind
Image of the GNU Free Documentation License
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Comment by katyzzz
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The healing powers of the Dolphin are well recognised, they 'sense' a lot of things we do not.
These were really interesting pieces of information and I take it you'll be interested in my brain work, as well.
Elephants and dolphins will never build a structure like a bridge but they may well bridge the gaps in man's so called superior wisdom.
Lovely article, give us more! and pics, too!
katyzzz