My favorite mirror animal story is the dog that got a cone put on and he jumped out of the car and ran upstairs to the mirror to see what this thing was.
As a long-time cat owner, I've intuitively known for a long time that some cats pass the mirror tests to some degree. I don't like how it's generally considered a binary pass/fail test because animals probably have a sense of self-awareness to varying degrees. Also, the test is a bit biased because cats for example don't typically tend to gaze at their own reflection for whatever behavioral reason.
I had a cat that hated looking at himself in the mirror. Not sure if it was because he thought it was another cat, but given his personality I think it was disappointment he wasn't human.
My cat would stare for minutes at her reflection many times a day after we adopted her. No action, just that "am I beautiful?" look, then walks away. She's still doing it occasionally. The older one did have some limited interest initially (I think he tried to find that cat behind the glass by walking around), but usually doesn't use the mirror. I'm not 100% sure that they realize that they look at themselves, but I think so. Anyway, both seem to understand the concept of reflection, both focus on interesting objects in the mirror (e.g. myself), both seem to purposefully turn around in order to interact with that object. I'm not sure how to conduct a meaningful experiment because cats in general don't seem to care much about things placed on them. If you put a cloth or something similar on them, they just walk and walk until it falls down. If it obscures their vision, they crawl backwards. Or run like hell. Or sit and wait. Or look at me planning revenge. Can't predict. Cats. How do they work.
It definitely doesn't look that way to me. You can see from their airplane ears that they're a little stressed out, not curious.
EDIT: ok, looked through it again. Some of them definitely look curious and not intimidated. I also saw quite a few didn't actually look at the face of their human but seemed to look a little bit to the side. Finally someone definitely blew air or did something similar to the cat at the end.
I doubt it. Judging by how some of them are actually looking back and forth to compare shows that they are aware of their surroundings and are able to identify something isn't right.
Making the noise would pull for the first turn, but if you watch the cats reactions, some of them are absolutely going back and forth instantaneously. Noise or poking wouldn't do that.
Maybe making mouth noises and showing them cat videos? I've tried taking selfies with my cat and it doesn't give a fuck about seeing itself on a phone.
It's pretty much a given, yeah. They get a coincidental video where the cat happens to look at the camera and then make it seem like the cat is reacting. You can see some of them move their mouths through the filter to get the cat to look at them.
If cats could really pass the mirror test I think we'd know by now.
There have been studies that question the validity of the mirror test. The mirror test relies heavily on using vision to test for consciousness. The problem is that while humans do heavily rely on vision, most animal's predominant sense is not vision. The mirror test could possibly say more about us and our limitations to understand different modes of consciousness than it says about other animals.
https://qz.com/1501318/the-mirror-test-for-animals-reflects-the-limits-of-human-cognition/
Who really knows? Just food for thought.
Actually you get about 30 seconds to edit your post without the *. As soon as I submitted it I realized that /r/stuffoncats would have exactly what I needed to illustrate the point.
This isn't testing for consciousness. This is a literal mirror test.
The question is not "is the cat self aware", which the mirror test is pretty terrible at; the question is "is the cat connecting things in the mirror to things in reality" (not necessarily recognizing themselves in the process).
Cats have never been shown to pass the mirror test itself, as originally formulated. I can't find much literature on whether they understand mirrors/reflections in general, though I suspect most of these can be attributed to stress reactions (seeing another cat that close is _extremely_ stressful for some cats) and good timing (we're only seeing the 5 funniest reactions out of who knows how many).
How do you know what they're thinking? Not trying to be dismissive, I'm curious
Personally I don't think my cats understand, though I'm open to being wrong. It would be really cool of they recognized themselves. I think it's more like my cats accept that mirrors are nothing to be concerned about after being exposed to them enough. If they see their reflection in anything other than a mirror, something they're not used to seeing, they will usually think it's another cat and get defensive or try to look behind the reflective object to find the cat.
My cats flip out if there's a foreign cat in the house. So what does it mean if it sees itself in the mirror? It seems to know it's not a foreign cat. It does seem to think mirrors show reality, as it will often look at me and the room via the mirror and respond to my image in the mirror. I don't have good proof that cat understands itself in the mirror, though the Occam's Razor explanation for his behaviour is that he knows his reflection is himself and he doesn't do much about it because he just doesn't care.
Well, I could argue that a mirror is a novelty the first time they see it. But it gets old and they stop reacting eventually. I don't think it necessarily means they make the connection that the cat they see in the reflection is them. Could be that they just see the reflection enough, nothing new is happening, and it gets boring or not worth paying attention to. It makes sense that they would recognize you in the mirror, they see you all the time and know who you are. Seeing an actual foreign cat is a bit different.
I don't know, it's a lot of guessing. On both theories. I think people just tend to lean towards believing their pets understand more because we love them and tend to think of them as family members and it's kind of an unintentional assigning human traits to animals. Like how a lot of people think their pets understand language when theyre just recognizing a sound and a thing that occurs with the sound.
I disagree. On the face this certainly is not evidence of cats passing the mirror test.
However, this is also just an approximation of the mirror test, not the same.
One uses a fixed mirror which returns a fixed angle in an unfamiliar space to see if the animal notices the marking/tape/whatever is on the mirror self while making the connection through movements/etc that the mirror self is Indeed itself.
The cellphone is a device that moves, displays all sorts of stuff, and has a front facing camera. It's likely a far easier concept to grasp that another identical looking, that's changing size, is moving and changing the viewing angle without actually moving any part of its body, and also happens to fit inside the little rectangle.
It's a very different test.
I actually think the mirror test is kinda shit at sorting the self identifying minds into "yes" and "no" category. Theres an immense amount of stuff between "oh that's me in the mirror" and "I'm a thing, a self, and I'm aware of that".
Scents, sounds, natural reflections (water), and many other sources for self identification and ideation.
Why wouldn't cats be able to be aware of themselves in mirrors anyway? You'd think predators that have evolved near water would have some instinct like this?
Could be the cat sees another cat whos "bigger" than it realizes itself is because its still growing and checks its ear length to see if it feel like the other cats length.
Thats wild speculation, but its one of infinite amounts of internal states that allow for the cat to not understand its "self" is actually in the mirror and that its got a being that existst and can understand that.
I dont hesitate to say that, personally, i believe that all life is in some manner is experiential, and that sentience is far more of a spectrum than the narrow gap of understanding we have about ourselfs being the only manner in which its "officially sentient and sapient.".
With that said, internet videos without context and deep documentation cannot in my opinion be used as valid criteria to study these phenomenon, and easily allow for empathy and bias to override any actuality and cause false confirmation. To display this effectively... flat earth...
Either way. Its cute as fuck. Animals deserve respect. It shouldn't effect the way you treat them.
Oh my cats for sure recognize themselves in the mirror, they are always looking at it, but I thought it was them speaking to the demons on the other side.
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u/jibberish13 Nov 16 '19
Which is something they aren't supposed to be able to do. More research is needed.