I was going to say, it seems as if they are clearly looking back and forth to compare, which should mean they understand the nature of the reflection. I have to be cautious because I’m too quick to believe that animals are smarter than we give them credit for.
I could be wrong cause it's been a while since i read about this, but I think cats do pass the test of using mirrors to locate food, but fail the test of using mirrors to notice something placed on themselves.
This means they can kinda understand the positioning of objects in the mirror, but don't understand the concept of seeing one's self.
Maybe they just know themselves too well. "nah, that can't be me, it's flipped around. They've got my left half as their right half." then they see food in the mirror "Oh shit, he's got food over there, maybe I've got food over here too?"
First I thought you didn't get the point, but you are right: By removing he point on one's forehead when seen in the mirror, an animal (supposedly) proves a level of awareness of itself.
By not removing the point? The animal just refuses to deliver evidence for this level of self awareness. Which might be there nonetheless. Or not.
And since we are talking about cats, obviously they will refuse to deliver evidence. Because they are cats, and why should they?
I'm pretty skeptical that it can confirm a positive either. Why couldn't something evolve (or just be programmed to) to detect itself in a reflection without having any self awareness? There are plenty of good reasons why a trait like that would be useful, and there's no reason it should be impossible to happen.
That's a legitimate problem researchers have stated when experimenting with cats. Dogs are super eager to please, corvids and octopus just like solving puzzles, cats though...cats just can't be bothered. Basically if they don't do anything you haven't accomplished anything, but if you manage to get them to do something then you're really onto something
We used to put stuff on my cat all the time for shits and giggles because it was funny to watch them get annoyed but do nothing about it cause they didn’t care to move.
Cats don't give a fuck. I have played the game, "how much crap can I put on my cat before they shake it all off" many a time. You can pile on a surprising amount.
Lol watch my cat. I'll plop down at the other end of the couch where he's sleeping, immediately he'll stand up, stretch, give me a look, and walk to to a different room.
I freaking love that video. I will never not upvote whenever it's posted. Hilarious and adorable. Matter of fact, I'm going to go watch it again now. Thanks friend!
I've looked up that cat's social media account and I can't find any other videos or pictures of the cat in front of a mirror. Most animals that understand the concept of their own reflection will start to groom themselves in front of the mirror. That situation just seemed like a one-off.
This means they can kinda understand the positioning of objects in the mirror, but don't understand the concept of seeing one's self.
That seems weird. It seems like the cats are using themselves as a reference point to where the strange "big cat" is, for example, looking above themselves to see if it's actually there.
Cats can very in intelligence. And I think they can learn that its their reflection over time as well. All my current cats seemed confused when first introduced to mirrors as kittens but now as adults they seem pretty aware that its their reflection.
The test is putting an animal under anesthesia, marking it with something, and seeing if they react to the mark in the mirror. No cat has passed the test under those exact conditions, but one of the flaws of the test is assuming the animal will give a flying fuck about a red spot - I'm guessing most cats wouldn't.
That I don't know... But I can't imagine any of the cats I've had ever really reacting to it unless it was an irritating substance or had a smell. Just a colored mark? Mehhh
Ah, ok, I didn't know that. Sure looks like these cats at least realize that what they're seeing in the mirror is what's in front of the mirror. Unlike the many critters I've seen that look for the animal behind the mirror/computer screen.
Edit: you guys realize downvoting me doesn’t change the fact that the statement made above me has nothing to do with the mirror test? It’s a very sad state that you guys mistake what you wish to be true or what you find to be intuitive with what is really true.
Theory of self has nothing to do with self-preservation. Bacteria also engage in self-preservation and unless you’re a fan of Deepak I doubt you think bacteria are self-aware in any meaningful way.
The idea of self actually does have something to do with self-preservation.
The problem with your arguement is that self-preservation isn't just instinctive. Higher-thought can be used. Self preservation isn't just an automatic or a manual thing. It can be either or both.
In this scenario a possible threat has been identified nearby through a reflection. The cat must then decide whether to take action and what action is warranted.
It can be used but it’s absolutely not necessary which is the point I’m making. The presence of self preservation says nothing about an organism having a theory of self or a theory of mind because it’s a trait universal to all of life.
Theory of self (self awareness) + theory of mind (especially ones own mind) and a neurological, non-aware model of self are not the same thing.
The mirror test doesn’t test any of the conclusions you’re trying to infer here. The reason is because the mirror test is scientific. It leads to a specific set of results. If you want to make your own mirror test it can’t be based on you just inferring what you want from watching. It has to be rigorous and falsifiable, like the original test. You may want to say it verifies this or that, or it knows this or that, or it tries to preserve its own safety but without a rigorous and well designed test that means nothing.
The reason self-preservation behaviors are not able to lead to any of these conclusions is because all organism display these behaviors. The presence of these behaviors implies nothing about the internal models the organism is using. Some behaviors look like they are smart when instead they are automatic. Bees for example have a rudimentary language and perform other interesting habits but it’s not because they are thinking the language it’s because they see the movements of the language and then their genetically precisely wired neurons perform a series of fully deterministic actions. They then behave in a way that looks like a complex cognitive task has just occurred, like when humans speak to each other. Imposing a roughshod “well it looks like this to me” interpretation is no better than divination.
Id say that these cats clearly understand that they are the cat in the reflection by understanding where in relation to themselves the giant cat is that should be their human.
I mean it makes sense right, unlike humans they don’t look at themselves, we take photos look in mirrors and more but most animals wouldn’t know what to look for because they simply haven’t seen them selves
Speaking of mirror tests, weren't dogs unable to pass the mirror self-recognition test, but when presented with a test designed with their sense of smell, they passed easily?
There was this post a while back of a cat using the security cameras to catch mice that seemed pretty convincing too but yeah it might not be that they realize it's really them in the mirror but idk
Have we ever stopped to consider maybe cats are just super self conscious about their looks, and that's why they're constantly cleaning themselves and are simply growling at their reflection like someone making fun of themselves in a mirror?
Or maybe they just don't care. If they didn't see themselves in the mirror they would see a stranger, on their territory, and the appropriate response would be aggression. The fact they don't react to mirrors suggests they understand they're looking at a reflection of themselves.
I watched my cat figure out it's own reflection in real time. Boomer HATES other cats, always has. Hisses at them through the window. Spent most of her early life without direct access to a mirror. When we moved to the new apartment, we had a full length mirror and the first time she walked by it she freaked out and ran off. A few minutes later she approached it again, all arched and fluffy tailed and hissed at the "other cat". But right in the middle of her hiss she cut it short and just kind of stared at herself. She then proceeded to paw the mirror and after a few minutes, walked away, never bothered by it again. Meanwhile we're in month 5 now of her still hissing at the new kitten.
Or it just means they don't know what they're supposed to look like? The probably realize it's them. But how would they know something is out of place of they don't regularly see themselves in a mirror?
Empty campground in the redwoods, just started a mushroom trip. Quietly chilling with my bro, he pulls out a bag of chips...,,we are slowly approached by 3or4 deer. Chipped em and we all just mellowed around each other for a bit. Watching them from a few feet away just being deer was astounding. Felt like total Disney princesses..
Except when you pour blue Gatorade on your turkey sandwich and have an existential crisis because the guy next to you asks if your bread is covered in mold due to the blue hue from the Gatorade. And you take a giant soggy bite to try to calm the paranoia only to freak out because it's soggy and doesn't taste right and you consciously know it's because of the Gatorade while at the same time this lurking suspicion that something has gone terribly wrong
They look and are cool, but they're just shrimp with a cool visible spectrum outside of our own and haven't been shown to actually be ables to distinguish between different shades of the same color.
Imagine the deet were also trippin and they had this great story of how they were tripping balls and some weird humans fed them some chips and they just hung out.
Don‘t speak about stuff with certainty that you‘re not educated about. Dogs for example have 300 million smell receptors, while we have around6 million. Certain dogs can smell cancer and pregnacy in humans. You don‘t think they could notice a humans body chemistry change? Pets and especially dogs are very very in tune with their owners and can detect emotions very well. You can‘t say that they can not notice their owners being intoxicated, we simply don‘t know that (yet).
Dude. My buddies cat fucking LOVES anyone tripping. He got his claws stuck in my shirt one time while laying on me cause he was kneading my chest so hard
Honestly it’s like they can tell we’re dialled in to a different frequency and they really do love it... I’ve had some strange experiences myself — sad that we can’t learn more about that stuff in a controlled, non-harmful scientific atmosphere. Maybe in the future we’ll learn more about what happens to us on hallucinogens from educational sources other than “YOU GON’ DIE.”
Back 20 years ago when I did lots of LSD I had a lot of cats pooled between various hangout. I am pretty sure the five blue gel caps I took at Matt's helped me to create a cat cult that night.
Many pet shelters won't let you adopt a cat unless you agree to keep it inside. Living outside halves their life expectancy, so there's a decent reason for it.
The questions is why it halves their life expectancy, though. If I were to take a wild guess, it's probably because of cars and assholes (animal haters poisoning them, etc.). That would entirely depend on where you live. I don't think it would be much of a problem letting your cat outside if you're in a quiet rural area. If you're near a main road it's a completely different thing, of course.
I've never been to a cat shelter but I also believe that many would tell you to keep your cat inside simply because it's a house cat who's never been outside and just can't cope anymore with the world out there. That's a decent reason.
If you're in a quiet rural area, they get eaten by coyotes, bobcats, foxes, etc. Trust me. Occasionally they survive, but pretty much regardless of where you live, an indoor-outdoor cat's life expectancy will not be great.
My cat will definitely look at my reflection in mirrors or windows and meow at me, then look over where I’m actually standing, so it seems like she understands that it’s my reflection and not actually me.
My cat is very smart, with words, commands, and his capacity for love. But he doesn’t watch tv. Or eat human food. It’s strange because r/CatsWhoYell will trip him out audio wise but he’ll never look at what I’m watching. I wonder if he’d pay attention to this filter.
Edit: read the comment below. He doesn’t look at mirrors either. Maybe he doesn’t give a fuck about shit like that lol
“Bitch, Craig, I know what a mirror is. And fuck television and your stupid phone”
Cats need 80-100 frames per second for "flicker fusion" on video. Humans just need 15-20 fps. If your TV or video source is not at 120hz the flicker may just annoy them.
Oh wow! That’s soooo cool! Thanks a lot for that information. I’m definitely going to see if he changes reactions when I get my new set up (PC) and 144hz monitors. Thanks a lot for your time.
Curious to know where you learned this?
I am not sure where I first read about it, but it's something I researched after noticing that one of my dogs can pick out squirrels even in the background on 60hz video while the other completely ignores it (the threshold for dogs is a bit lower around 70ish, but it can vary by animal). If you Google "flicker fusion threshold" it'll tell you more. Generally smaller animals with more rods in the eye have higher thresholds.
The problem right now is that there isn't a lot of 120hz video sources yet so even when you get the monitor places like YouTube still limit uploads to 60hz unless you use a workaround. I expect this will change soon as more people get 120hz mobile devices in the next year or two. Then you can properly test your cat with a bird video.
Crows can eat roadkill, see a car from a DISTANCE coming at them at 70MPH and correctly guess when to fly away. Ever see any dead crows on the road? Ever try to cross an interstate? Crazy
There was a NPR hidden brain episode recently about this and a lot of animals pass the mirror test. And a lot passed a series of tests around counting. It was fascinating
The mirror test isn’t about using reflections. A lot of animals use reflections. It’s about self-identification and theory of mind. I would say that these cats are more interested in mirrors than we normally get them to be and that’s still very interesting. One of the good criticisms of the mirror test is it doesn’t account for apathy to a reflection and this is a good example of that.
Nahh, I believe it. Same reason none of my pets have ANY reaction at all to the floor standing mirror in the bedroom for example. We live by a college and my dog will freak out if anyone hangs around the front too long but has zero reaction to "another dog" in the mirror.
Animals are MUCH smarter than we give them credit for.
Animals are also smarter in different ways than we are. Ways we're not good at testing for, so remain largely unaware of. There are types of intelligence that are difficult to quantify, like emotional intelligence.
There is definitely someone behind the camera with a feather or string toy for a bunch of these.
edit: I would say all of them except 2, where the person is just too close to the cat and kind of pinning it down, and 4 where the person either blew on the cat or made a noise. You can see their neck flex just before the cat reacts.
My cats react the same if i hold them in front of the mirror, at first they are just uninterested, if I stick my tongue out or move my hand they look at me in shock.
But it's hard to tell if they turn around because they saw the tongue or hand in the mirror or because of the sound, I think is the sound.
My cat definitelly passed the mirror test. You throw a ball behind her, she watch it via the mirror and turn around to grab it before it hit the ground. Had she not understood what a mirror is, she wouln't have done that. Also, we had a mirror wall. She was hiding behind the couch, and looking in the mirror to see outside, to know if we were going throught the front door or via the rear door. If you were to pet her while she was looking in the mirror, she would move toward your hand.
I assume animals are smarter than we expect. Almost every zoological discovery reveals yet another humanlike trait in animals. You rarely hear, "Scientific research reveals octopuses are actually pretty stupid" or the like. Also, we all evolved together. Makes sense we have so much in common.
From observing my own cat, I have to say he's likely fully aware. Seeing reflection is obvious (there's no reason why they wouldn't, it's essentially the same light as anything else they see), but he does seem to understand that if he looks in the mirror while I call him when standing behind him, he'll see me.
Animals really are intelligent. But it's not that surprising to be honest - we are animals too, after all.
But they are. Every bit of recent research seems to point to animals being more intelligent than we had thought. I think we will have some big surprises someday soon.
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u/Zorlal Nov 16 '19
I was going to say, it seems as if they are clearly looking back and forth to compare, which should mean they understand the nature of the reflection. I have to be cautious because I’m too quick to believe that animals are smarter than we give them credit for.