alonewiththemoon: Drumlin Farm Banding Station 2016 (Default)
alonewiththemoon ([personal profile] alonewiththemoon) wrote in [personal profile] wsmith 2008-04-03 03:08 pm (UTC)

I was going to repeat what Julishka said about it being a trained act, not a spontaneous act of self-awareness. That said, though, I read an article recently (of course, I don't remember where) that said we are really having to re-examine our assumptions about animals' self-awareness. One experiment I remember from the article was that researchers kept dolphins in a tank with a mirror. They painted spots on the dolphins' heads, and when a dolphin saw its reflection, it would peer at itself and then go try to rub off the spot on something, checking again to see if it had been successful. It had been widely accepted wisdom that animals don't understand reflections, but clearly the dolphins not only understood it, but understood how to use the phenomenon as well.

Post a comment in response:

This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting