So sayeth an Emory Psych Grad student here in Atlanta, Joshua Plotnik, and his colleagues. They studied Asian Elephants and will publish their results today online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Very cool stuff! Elephants may now join the club of self-aware, socially complex and empathic critters, currently populated by several Great Ape species (including some humans :D) and dolphins.
As in ‘does my bum look big in this’?
I’ve owned cats, and observed them the first time they saw their reflection in the mirror. They behaved as if there was another cat there, and started defending their territory. But if they kept on seeing that cat in the mirror, day after day, they came to realise that there wasn’t another cat there. Whether they recognised that it was their own reflection, I don’t know, but there’s certainly some cognitive learning going on there. And dogs are capable of similar cognitive learning, too. So I’m not sure there is a hard line dividing one group of mammals from others in terms of cognition, except perhaps that Homo sapiens is the only species with a true language ability.
But there’s no sign that cats and dogs perceive the reflection as themselves - just that it’s not a threat, or even that it’s not ‘real’. But to see the reflection as yourself means you understand the concept of being alive as a creature in a body, and that the mirror shows your true self. It’s actually a pretty significant cognitive leap, and only a very few animals in the world have ever shown that ability.
When I saw the Google News front page reference to “Elephants can recognize their reflections in a mirror” last night, the thumbnail image next to it was “interesting.” It was W! I demand they retest him, I have my doubts.
(Many of the Google News thumbnails are apparently chaotically chosen. A week or so ago, the thumbnail was a faked picture of a topless Jessica Simpson.)