“Recognition of one’s own reflection,” he wrote, “Would seem to require a rather advanced form of intellect Moreover, insofar as self-recognition of one’s mirror image implies a concept of self, these data would seem to qualify as the first experimental demonstration of a self-concept in a subhuman form.” Gallup’s mirror test is one of the most famous and controversial techniques in the study of animal intelligence.
For a few decades, they were thought to be the only great apes that failed the mirror test; a few individuals have since passed, but all had lived in enriched environments with extensive human contact.
Known for their intelligence, they’ve been described as “Feathered apes.” If any bird would pass the mirror test, safe money would go on a corvid.
If these people, who are plainly self-aware, are failing the mirror test, then what is the test actually testing? For example, Broesch suggested that the Kenyan kids understood that they were reflected in the mirror, but didn’t know what to do about that.
What the mirror test tells us is that chimps and orangutans-dextrous, curious, visually oriented, grooming-obsessed species-react to marked reflections in a way that Western scientists can empathize with and can easily interpret.
Originally published at Cogly.
