Why should a dog recognise itself in a mirror?

[JoeTheJuggler]

The "better" or "worse" comes from the idea that an animal that can self-recognize is somehow more valuable than an animal that can not. (For an amusing example, look on the Forum Community page for the thread about animals that people will or will not eat - if they perceive the animal can self-recognize, for some people, that means they will not eat it.)

But those judgments certainly aren't made by the science itself. You can use these kinds of experiments to make a case for an animal being "more valuable" or whatever, but that's not a flaw in the mirror experiments themselves.

I agree it's interesting. It's the value people place on it that I find odd. Why not value a frog, or a rattlesnake, as much as we value dogs? As much as people dislike rattlesnakes (and spend inordinate amounts of time trying to kill them) they are a creature perfectly adapted to their environment and perform the valuable service of ridding the world of excess mice and rats. Since dogs are sometimes praised for the exact same service, it's odd to me that people hate rattlesnakes but love dogs. I think it's because they perceive that the dog is more "like" them than the rattlesnake is, and so they are fascinated with the idea that the dog can self-identify, just like we can. It's entirely possible that dogs have completely different abilities than humans do - but they are still great animals, just like rattlesnakes are.

That's a whole other question. I would answer that under most conventional moral systems we don't consider killing an animal with very limited higher mental functions (such as self-awareness) the moral equivalent to killing a human (or other animal with those higher functions).

Personally, I think desire utilitarianism is perhaps the logical system that best describes the way our minds deal with these moral questions.

By the way, I'm a vegetarian largely for the reason you cite, though I draw the line roughly at the animal kingdom. I would argue that killing a plant for food is much more acceptable than killing mammals, not because of its relative dissimilarity to us generally, but because of the specific incapacity of plants to have desires that might be thwarted or fulfilled. FWIW, I don't think the mirror test for self-awareness informs my decision at all. Self-awareness is much higher than the standard I use. I see the capacity to have desires much closer to how people talk about whether or not something can suffer than it is to the capacity for self-awareness.

But this really is another topic--one that probably belongs in the Philosophy subforum.

Even if self-awareness were the standard used to make these value judgements, the mirror test, as pointed out, can really only be evidence for the presence of self-awareness, and isn't very compelling evidence of the absence of it.

Dogs can "see themselves" in a mirror but mostly fail to recognize the significance that is actually themselves. Humans can "see themselves" in a mirror and most will realize it is a mirror image of themselves.

That's pretty much the point of the mirror test for self-awareness.

I thought you were offering a reason why the test wouldn't work on dogs (sort of like the one someone offered about dogs not having color vision). I took your statement to be a response to the question asked in the OP.

 

[Dogdoctor]

In answer to the OP there is no reason why a dog should recognize itself in a mirror.

 

[mist]

Very interesting thread!

My cat would also refuse to look into mirrors (I tried to put her right in front of them, but she forceably turned her head). And my dog seems to have no interest in them.

I think that humans recognize themselves like they recognize any other person, as from a general mental repository of faces. We just have a mental link connecting 'doing actions when feeling/seeing something on me' with 'doing actions when seeing something on someone I know ('me')'. If that's true we could attribute the mirror effect to simple conditioning.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I'm not sure but think maybe dogs can be trained to recognize themselves in a mirror.

I don't think you can. If they don't understand that the dot on the dog in the mirror is actually on them, I don't think you can condition them to respond as if they did. (They'd still need to recognize the dog in the mirror as themselves in order to respond to the dot at the appropriate times.)

In their normal life they have no need and will not gain anything from looking at themselves in a mirror.

The same is true of the other non-human animals that have passed the mirror test. The other great apes, for example, don't ordinarily use mirrors or gain anything from using them (unless it was introduced by humans).

You're right that there could be other reasons (other than an absence of self-awareness) that account for dogs' inability to pass the mirror test. However, if the dog lacks the capacity of self-awareness, I don't think you can teach it.

Having said that, I think "self-awareness" is probably itself something that exists on a continuum rather than something that is simply there or not there. At the very least, I think we can conclude that dogs don't have self-awareness to the degree that humans and the other great apes do.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

FWIW, I used to have a very cool cichlid from Lake Malawi. It was a Haplochromis fuscotaeniatus. He'd been sold from the fish store and returned a number of times. He was a hyper-aggressive fish. In many of these African cichlids, the dominant male turns a bright metallic blue, like this one. Apparently, this guy would kill ANYTHING you put in a tank with him. I happened to have an aquarium I could dedicate to him (and the water chemistry was a bit tricky anyway).

To the point: he was pretty much the only fish that responded to the presence of humans in the room, but when the lighting was such that he saw his own reflection, he went into full attack mode. Even when he was aroused by his reflection, he would "pace" the aquarium. Scariest, and coolest fish I ever owned. (He also made me decide to quit keeping fish, since he would have been MUCH better off in Lake Malawi.)

I think it's safe to say that he did not recognize the reflection as himself, but definitely saw it as another male competitor.

 

[Dogdoctor]

I don't think you can. If they don't understand that the dot on the dog in the mirror is actually on them, I don't think you can condition them to respond as if they did. (They'd still need to recognize the dog in the mirror as themselves in order to respond to the dot at the appropriate times.)


The same is true of the other non-human animals that have passed the mirror test. The other great apes, for example, don't ordinarily use mirrors or gain anything from using them (unless it was introduced by humans).

You're right that there could be other reasons (other than an absence of self-awareness) that account for dogs' inability to pass the mirror test. However, if the dog lacks the capacity of self-awareness, I don't think you can teach it.

Having said that, I think "self-awareness" is probably itself something that exists on a continuum rather than something that is simply there or not there. At the very least, I think we can conclude that dogs don't have self-awareness to the degree that humans and the other great apes do.

There is a difference between learning something on their own and learning something under guidance from a human. Dogs can learn stuff but on their own there is a limit to what they will learn because they have no motivation to do so. It may be that they could learn to use a mirror. However all said and done it may be beyond the capacity of a dog. I'm not convinced one way or the other.

 

[blutoski]

FWIW, I used to have a very cool cichlid from Lake Malawi. It was a Haplochromis fuscotaeniatus. He'd been sold from the fish store and returned a number of times. He was a hyper-aggressive fish. In many of these African cichlids, the dominant male turns a bright metallic blue, like this one. Apparently, this guy would kill ANYTHING you put in a tank with him. I happened to have an aquarium I could dedicate to him (and the water chemistry was a bit tricky anyway).

To the point: he was pretty much the only fish that responded to the presence of humans in the room, but when the lighting was such that he saw his own reflection, he went into full attack mode. Even when he was aroused by his reflection, he would "pace" the aquarium. Scariest, and coolest fish I ever owned. (He also made me decide to quit keeping fish, since he would have been MUCH better off in Lake Malawi.)

I think it's safe to say that he did not recognize the reflection as himself, but definitely saw it as another male competitor.

I've seen this with dogs and cats, too, over and above the aforementioned window situations.

I think what we forget about dogs and cats and mirrors in our home is that they may have seen their reflection every day of their lives up to this point, and are not very excited because they've long ago learned that whatever that 'thing' is, it's not interesting anymore.

My cats get bored with stuffed animal toys, my dog lost interest in the skunk puppet. I can see them losing interest in their own reflection, given enough time.

Colleagues have told me about their dogs growling at their reflection in a window, because the parallax makes them think there's a dog outside. I've never seen it myself.

 

[Brian-M]

That's a whole other question. I would answer that under most conventional moral systems we don't consider killing an animal with very limited higher mental functions (such as self-awareness) the moral equivalent to killing a human (or other animal with those higher functions).

Personally, I think desire utilitarianism is perhaps the logical system that best describes the way our minds deal with these moral questions.

If you're going to use "desire utilitarianism" to as a basis for determining the morality of killing animals, then you'd have to be strongly against eating pigs.

http://www.livescience.com/common/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2288

Well, why not? In the current issue of Animal Behaviour, researchers present evidence that domestic pigs can quickly learn how mirrors work and will use their understanding of reflected images to scope out their surroundings and find their food. The researchers cannot yet say whether the animals realize that the eyes in the mirror are their own, or whether pigs might rank with apes, dolphins and other species that have passed the famed “mirror self-recognition test” thought to be a marker of self-awareness and advanced intelligence.

To which I say, big squeal. Why should the pigs waste precious mirror time inspecting their teeth or straightening the hairs on their chinny-chin-chins, when they could be using the mirror as a tool to find a far prettier sight, the pig heaven that comes in a bowl?

 

[RSLancastr]

I find this amusing as I often fail to recognise myself in a mirror.
Not if I'm actually shaving or something- but if, for example, I am seated in a restaurant facing a mirror on an opposite wall, I'm likely to recognise the back of the head of the person seated across from me as a reflection, well before I realise the goofy bald bloke looking at me is in fact, me.

there have been many times when I have glimpsed my reflection in a window, and thought "Who's the fat guy?" this past year, while exercising in a Physical Therapy session, I glimpsed myself in the large mirror on the wall and thought "who's the old guy?"

Ouch.

 

[Cuddles]

You're right that there could be other reasons (other than an absence of self-awareness) that account for dogs' inability to pass the mirror test.

I think the biggest reason, as has already been noted by others, is simply that the expectation dogs will behave in the same way as humans do is just plain wrong. Sure, you can fail the mirror test by not realising that the reflection is actually you. But you can also fail by simply not caring.

To throw some anecdotes in, we used to have a dog. She would happily spend all day rolling around in mud, horse **** and various other fun things, and not care in the slightest what she was covered in at the end of the day. The same dog also once managed to have saddle soap (for those who don't know, it's not just soap, it contains all kinds of fun things like wax for conditioning leather) spilled all over her back. Despite taking several washes over the course of a few days to get her clean again, she never showed any indication of caring, or even noticing, that she had stuff on her. And yet the same dog is expected to have some kind of reaction to being shown a little red dot on her face? Really?

The mirror test can certainly be an indicator of self-awareness, but as was made pretty clear early on in the thread, it cannot show a lack of self-awareness. The lack of reaction to a red dot may show a lack of recognition, but it may just show a lack of giving a damn, or it may show something else entirely.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

There is a difference between learning something on their own and learning something under guidance from a human. Dogs can learn stuff but on their own there is a limit to what they will learn because they have no motivation to do so. It may be that they could learn to use a mirror. However all said and done it may be beyond the capacity of a dog. I'm not convinced one way or the other.

But we're talking about the capacity, not just the behavior. Self-awareness is a capacity. Although I think it's best to consider it something that exists on a continuum, for the purposes of the mirror test, it's kind of an all-or-nothing trait.

You could teach dogs to behave as if they had self-awareness, but the mirror test depends on the dog being able to understand that the image in the mirror is itself. The point of the test is to eliminate any other cue that would lead to the animal behaving as if it had that understanding but doesn't really. (So no trainers in the room that could give subtle cues as to when the behavior was expected, as with Clever Hans.)

For example, you can condition elephants to make a series of brushstrokes to reproduce a representational drawing conceived by a human, but there is no evidence that elephants have the capacity to understand a 2-D drawing as representing anything in the real world. See this thread.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I think the biggest reason, as has already been noted by others, is simply that the expectation dogs will behave in the same way as humans do is just plain wrong. Sure, you can fail the mirror test by not realising that the reflection is actually you. But you can also fail by simply not caring.

But again, the researchers who devised this test aren't expecting dogs to behave the way humans do. They're testing to see if they do.

As has been mentioned, the mirror test can only be evidence for the presence of self-awareness and not proof of the absence.

And yet the same dog is expected to have some kind of reaction to being shown a little red dot on her face? Really?

No, not really. That's why you run the test, not because you have an expectation, but because we have seen that some animals do pass the test, and it's a good way to show evidence of the presence of self-awareness. Before we tested dogs, we didn't know whether they would pass or not. (As has been mentioned, there's been at least one surprise result--where a bird species passed the test.)

The mirror test can certainly be an indicator of self-awareness, but as was made pretty clear early on in the thread, it cannot show a lack of self-awareness. The lack of reaction to a red dot may show a lack of recognition, but it may just show a lack of giving a damn, or it may show something else entirely.

Exactly!

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

there have been many times when I have glimpsed my reflection in a window, and thought "Who's the fat guy?" this past year, while exercising in a Physical Therapy session, I glimpsed myself in the large mirror on the wall and thought "who's the old guy?"

Ouch.

I can top that--last summer I shaved off my trademark goatee and handlebar mustache for a while. When I grew it back, I grew it back as a full beard until it was long enough to trim to my familiar style. While I had the full beard, I looked in the mirror one day when I'd had a rough night sleeping and had a bit of baggy eyes.

My dad's face looked back at me! (And he died a couple years ago!)

Similarly, the first time most people hear their own recorded voice played back think it sounds too high and trebly because we're used to hearing our voice with some sound conducted directly through our head (through bones and such).

This line of thinking reminds me of a great little Zen book I once read. It was not much more than an essay. It was called "On Having No Head". It was about the great flash of enlightenment from the realization that one can never see one's own head beyond a bit of out-of-focus nose. Otherwise, it's just reflections (with a greater or lesser degree of distortion and the apparent reversing of my right hand preference and so on).

When I watch video of myself doing my juggling show, everything seems wrong because it looks like stuff is happening on the wrong side from what I'm used to.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Sorry to have started this particular derail, but I find it a fascinating subject. . .

If you're going to use "desire utilitarianism" to as a basis for determining the morality of killing animals, then you'd have to be strongly against eating pigs.

I am. I'm a vegetarian. (Though I'm a pro-choice vegetarian.)

My own take on desire utilitarianism is that I think it's about the best description of what goes on in our minds wrt to morality. I think of it the way a particular linguistic theory, like transformational grammar, might be proposed to describe what goes on in the human mind wrt to language. I don't use it to generate prescriptive conclusions. Instead, I note that it seems to agree with the moral principles I hold and the way I came up with them, whether I was fully aware of the process or not.

In that regard, I differ from Fyfe who claims to have changed his view on abortion by consciously applying desire utilitarianism to the question. Just as with linguistic theories, these kinds of logical systems of morality are checked against what a reasonable person would do. If a linguistic system would generate an utterance that any native speaker would think "sounds wrong", we don't force the speakers to adopt that type of utterance; instead we revise or discard the system. (In case it's not plain, I think of morality as very similar to language. There's an internal capacity and a conventional aspect to it. Anyone with a normally functioning brain can internalize any human conventional system. These conventions vary widely in the details but also share some substantial core universals. Both evolved as adaptations for intelligent animals living in very complex social groups and probably had a lot to do with human success and radiation to nearly the entire land surface of the planet.)

 

[Thabiguy]

It was about the great flash of enlightenment from the realization that one can never see one's own head beyond a bit of out-of-focus nose.

Well, it's without question that one doesn't normally see much of one's own head, but to say that one can never see anything beyond a bit of nose is somewhat exaggerating.

With no more than a little grimacing, I can see my upper lip, my lower lip, tongue, cheeks, nose, nose bridge, eyebrows, hair, and probably beard if I had one long enough. Eyelashes, although very out of focus, are also visible, especially when clumped together with fingers. With more extreme manipulation, I can even see my own nostrils. - It might actually be shorter to list what parts of my face I can't see, no matter how hard I try (chin, teeth, brow, ears, and of course eyes).

So I would say that the author of the essay went perhaps a bit too far with their premise. But hey, maybe their next essay could be, "On Living Among People with No Brains," because - let's be honest - when was the last time you saw someone else's brain with your own eyes?