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A ‘Self-Aware’ Fish Raises Doubts About a Cognitive Test

We Never Know

No Slack
Do more species have self-awareness than we realize?

"A little blue-and-black fish swims up to a mirror. It maneuvers its body vertically to reflect its belly, along with a brown mark that researchers have placed on its throat. The fish then pivots and dives to strike its throat against the sandy bottom of its tank with a glancing blow. Then it returns to the mirror. Depending on which scientists you ask, this moment represents either a revolution or a red herring.

Alex Jordan, an evolutionary biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, thinks this fish — a cleaner wrasse — has just passed a classic test of self-recognition. Scientists have long thought that being able to recognize oneself in a mirror reveals some sort of self-awareness, and perhaps an awareness of others’ perspectives, too. For almost 50 years, they have been using mirrors to test animals for that capacity. After letting an animal get familiar with a mirror, they put a mark someplace on the animal’s body that it can see only in its reflection. If the animal looks in the mirror and then touches or examines the mark on its body, it passes the test."

Read more here....


https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-self-aware-fish-raises-doubts-about-a-cognitive-test-20181212/
 
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fantome profane

Anti-Woke = Anti-Justice
Premium Member
Do more species have self-awareness than we realize?

"A little blue-and-black fish swims up to a mirror. It maneuvers its body vertically to reflect its belly, along with a brown mark that researchers have placed on its throat. The fish then pivots and dives to strike its throat against the sandy bottom of its tank with a glancing blow. Then it returns to the mirror. Depending on which scientists you ask, this moment represents either a revolution or a red herring.

Alex Jordan, an evolutionary biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, thinks this fish — a cleaner wrasse — has just passed a classic test of self-recognition. Scientists have long thought that being able to recognize oneself in a mirror reveals some sort of self-awareness, and perhaps an awareness of others’ perspectives, too. For almost 50 years, they have been using mirrors to test animals for that capacity. After letting an animal get familiar with a mirror, they put a mark someplace on the animal’s body that it can see only in its reflection. If the animal looks in the mirror and then touches or examines the mark on its body, it passes the test."

Read more here....


A ‘Self-Aware’ Fish Raises Doubts About a Cognitive Test | Quanta Magazine
When you think about it, fish might have more experience with reflective surfaces than many land animals. And the fish may have a very good evolutionary reason for keeping its belly free of such markings (camouflage or attracting a mate?).

Yes, I do think passing this test does indicate a degree of self-awareness. But failing the test might have other explanations.
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
This seems to be quite a complex issue, but perhaps the evidence that the more social creatures might pass the self-awareness test - if this is truly such - might be appropriate, given that social behaviour is posited as one of the drivers for enabling intelligence. And this possibly related to the enlargement of any memory and/or discriminatory powers.
 
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