Using the Wikipedia article Mirror Test as a starting point, I learned that the mirror test "is a measure of self-awareness developed by Gordon Gallup Jr. in 1970."
According to this Wikipedia article, here is some information on animals that "pass" the mirror test.
Animals that have passed the mirror test include: all of the great apes (bonobos,[5] chimpanzees,[5][6] orangutans,[7] gorillas and humans), bottlenose dolphins,[5][8][9] orcas,[citation needed] elephants,[10] and European Magpies.[11] Initially, it was thought that gorillas did not pass the test, but there are now several well-documented reports of gorillas (such as Koko[12]) passing the test. In 1981, Epstein, Lanza and Skinner published a paper in the journal Science in which they argued that the pigeon also passes the mirror test.[13][14] Pigeons though could only detect the spots on their own body after they had been trained to and untrained pigeons have never been able to pass the mirror test.[15] However, magpies have been shown to pass the test by trying to remove a coloured sticker from underneath their beaks when shown it in a mirror.[16] Dogs, cats, and young human babies all fail the mirror test.[3][4] Humans tend to fail the mirror test until they are about 18 months old, or what psychoanalysts call the "mirror stage".[17]
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Pigs are also able to pass a variation of the mirror test. 7 of the 8 pigs tested were able to find a bowl of food hidden behind a wall using a mirror. The eighth pig looked behind the mirror for the food. (Pigs learn what a mirror image represents and use it to obtain information)
However, other sources seem to say that other animals have NOT passed the mirror test (keeping in mind that this is from 2006, so perhaps science has made major strides since then, or perhaps the definition of "passed" is somewhat different than I assume.)
Scientists have tested mirror self-recognition in a variety of animals other than humans and great apes, but invariably failed, with the exception of the bottlenose dolphin. "After the recent discovery that dolphins are capable of recognizing themselves in the mirror, elephants seemed the next logical species for testing," said Reiss. "Humans, great apes, dolphins and elephants, well known for their superior intelligence and complex social systems, are thought to possess the highest forms of empathy and altruism in the animal kingdom."
(First Evidence To Show Elephants, Like Humans, Apes And Dolphins, Recognize Themselves In Mirror
Dolphins
At any rate, more sources than not at least consent that dolphins do very well on this mirror test, as suggested by this paper, Evidence of self-awareness in the bottlenose dolphin, published in 1996. (It's from a book called "Self-awareness in Animals and Humans: Developmental Perspectives. " Edited by Sue Taylor Parker, Robert W. Mitchell, and Maria L. Boccia. which might prove to be interesting to look into someday.)This chapter reports on the results of a series of studies utilizing a mirror to assess whether dolphins recognize contingent representations of themselves or use the mirror to examine an area of the body not otherwise visible that has been marked with a highly salient substance. We adapted the mirror mark test (Gallup, 1970) for use with the bottlenose dolphin. We employed several control conditions, including mirror without mark, no mirror and no mark, and first encounter between unfamiliar dolphins through a barrier. We also devised and conducted several new tests for self-recognition, tailored for dolphins rather than primates. These tests, which utilize self-view television and video playback, are summarized here. This chapter focuses on interpreting mirror-directed behavior (both marked and unmarked) by comparing it to the control data. We address the central question of whether the dolphins' mirror-directed behavior is social or self-examination. We also discuss the role of environmental, social, and individual influences on the test results.
Methods
Five dolphins, 6-14 years old, living at Sea Life Park, served as subjects of this study (Table 24.1). The groups of dolphins changed throughout the course of the research. The dolphins dwell in a two-tank complex (Figure 24.1). The laboratory has five underwater windows looking into the large tank. One window is a 1.2-m-diameter circle, which can be made into a large one-way mirror. Another window is 0.6 m x 0.6 m and houses a 20-in. Sony Trinitron color television that the dolphins can watch. Data were collected by videotaping the animals through the window or a one-way mirror with a Minolta S-VHS Series V-200 video camera. Notes on behavior were also recorded on an ongoing basis during testing. No food rewards were provided.
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Mirror mark tests. All dolphins had some mirror exposure prior to their first mark test. The dolphins were not isolated during their mark tests, and sometimes more than one animal was marked at a time. All but one of the dolphins had multiple mark tests. Table 24.1 presents information regarding the hours of mirror exposure prior to each mark test, the body part marked, and other relevant information.
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Unless noted otherwise, all animals were marked on their sides with approximately 3/4 oz of zinc oxide (Figure 24.2). Zinc oxide is a tactile as well as visual stimulus. (We could not find an appropriate stain without tactile stimulus.) Other stains used were gentian violet, a purple topical antiseptic, and ichthammol, a black antiseptic ointment. One subject, Itsi Bitsi, was sham marked (with the mirror present) with Vaseline six times prior to her first zinc oxide mark test. Mark locations were selected for their likelihood of being visible only with the aid of a mirror. Bottlenose dolphin eyes point laterally and cant forward and down. This creates a binocular field in front of and below the animal, with a blind area behind and above, where the marks were located.
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Conclusion
No single test presented here proves self-recognition in bottlenose dolphins. The tests were developed mainly from primate research paradigms, and their limitations for interpretations of dolphin behavior are apparent. Nevertheless, the data taken together make a compelling case for self-recognition in this species. Four of five dolphins apparently examined their marks in a mirror; most brought objects to the mirror and played with them in front of it, even moving the object back when it drifted out of view; and most of the mirror-mode television tests designed to distinguish self-examination from social behavior suggested self-examination. Not only did dolphins attend to their mirror (or television) images less than 1% of the time as compared to 100% for real dolphins, but they engaged in different behavior with mirrors than they did with other dolphins. The results obtained in the experiments presented here are consistent with the hypothesis that these animals are using the mirror to examine themselves. More definitive results, however, will have to come from methodologies developed specifically for dolphins.
Elephants
Notes below are from an NPR interview: Self-Recognition in an Asian Elephant.
October 31, 2006
A study titled "Self-Recognition in an Asian Elephant" has found that elephants, like humans, chimpanzees, and dolphins, recognize themselves in mirrors. Robert Siegel talks with Joshua Plotnik, a gradate student in psychology at Emory University's Yerkes National Primate Research Center, who co-authored the study.
Mr. JOSHUA PLOTNIK (Emory University): [ . . . ]So we installed a huge mirror that was about eight feet by eight feet glued to a piece of plywood, encased in steel and then bolted to a wall so that the elephants have no way to really manipulate the mirror. We would then release the elephants into the yard where the mirror was located to see how they would react to the mirror image.Actually, almost all animals initially react to mirror images socially -- even human babies or humans who regain their sight later in life. ("At first, even animals that are capable of passing the mirror test respond as the orangutan described by Darwin.[4] In fact, young children and people who have been blind from birth but have their sight restored initially react as if their reflection in the mirror was another person." Wikipedia article citing "Stanley Coren. How dogs think. ISBN 0743222326. and Archer, John (1992). Ethology and Human Development. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0389209961.")
SIEGEL: And the star of the class, I gather, was a 35-year-old Asian elephant named Happy.
Mr. PLOTNIK: Yes, absolutely. We tested three elephants - Maxine, Patty, as you may know those are the Andrews Sisters, and Happy. Maxine and Patty and Happy, all three of them, approached the mirror and did not do social behavior, which is extremely unique. What you expect from an animal when they're first exposed to a mirror, as we see in chimpanzees, is immediate social behavior. As if they're thinking that mirror image is another animal.
What we saw immediately was a lot of investigations. So smelling, touching of the mirror surface. Maxine and Patty both tried to actually climb the mirror wall to look up and over and behind it to see perhaps if there was another elephant there.In another article (First Evidence To Show Elephants, Like Humans, Apes And Dolphins, Recognize Themselves In Mirror), Plotnik describes the set-up and it's importance further:
They then moved to what we call contingency testing behavior, which the best way to describe that is an animal moving its head in and out of mirror view as if it's asking itself, why is the animal in the mirror doing the same thing that I'm doing. And then the hallmark that we look for, the self-directed behaviors.
In humans, obviously, when you go to a mirror, you might try and pick food out of your teeth, pick a booger out of your nose, whatever you would do in front of a mirror. Chimpanzees do very similar things. Elephants, on the other hand, we weren't sure what to expect, but what we saw was one elephant, Maxine, for instance, grabbed her left ear and pulled it slowly towards the mirror as if she was inspecting it. And all three elephants did a lot of trunk in mouth displays. Taking their trunks and sticking them into their mouths.
SIEGEL: But it was Happy - you put an X on her forehead, I gather - and she did things that indicated that she knew that X was on her.
Mr. PLOTNIK: Actually we did this to all three elephants. We put a visible white face paint mark on one side of her head, and a sham mark - we call this a sham mark - and it's an invisible face mark on the other side of her head. And the reason you do this is you want to make sure that the elephant isn't touching the mark on its head just because it feels it or smells it.
And Happy in front of the mirror repeatedly touched the visible white X mark on her head more than 12 times.
SIEGEL: Now does this tell you that Happy is just a little sharper than Maxine and Patty or that there might be some elephants capable of this cognitive behavior and some not. What's the answer?
Mr. PLOTNIK: We have two hypotheses. One is that we've only tested three elephants here. In the chimpanzee literature, many, many chimpanzees have been tested and less than half of them seem to pass. So the idea is that when you demonstrate the capacity for mirror self-recognition in a species, that's the most important thing. That doesn't necessarily mean that every single individual will pass.
The other interesting idea is that chimpanzees and humans, for that matter, like to groom by taking things off their body. So you might have a piece of dirt on your arm that you would want to pick off. And elephants, they actually like to put things on their body. They're constantly dust bathing by throwing dirt on their backs and storing food on their backs.
So it's possible that although had Happy had initial interest in the mark on her face, Maxine and Patty just might have seen the mark as inconsequential.
Elephants have been tested in front of mirrors before, but previous studies used relatively small mirrors kept out of the elephants' reach," said Plotnik. "This study is the first to test the animals in front of a huge mirror they could touch, rub against and try to look behind.
Corvids - Magpies
Magpies (which are included in the family of Corvids that includes crows, ravens, rooks, etc.) have been shown to try and remove a sticker when shown their image in a mirror. A BBC News article about the study, called Meet the brains of the animal world , explains (as well as has some other very interesting information about tool use in corvids.)And to test this, scientists use the Gallup mark test, where an animal is marked on a part of its body that it cannot normally see and is then shown its reflection in a mirror.
If it notices this mark and tries to remove it, then it suggests that the animal knows it is looking at itself and could possess some kind of self-awareness.
So far, only some species of primates have consistently passed this self-recognition test, although more recent studies suggest elephants and dolphins may also respond.
But last year, a German team revealed that magpies, marked with a coloured sticker under their beaks, tried to remove it when presented with a mirror - the first time a bird had been seen to pass this test.
Professor Onur Gunturkun, from Ruhr-University Bochum, one of the authors of the Plos paper, says: "It throws out the assumption that only higher mammals were capable of self-recognition."
Pigs
In the study presented by Animal Behaviour, seven out of eight pigs primed with a mirror found food reflected in the image. Naive pigs shown the same reflection looked behind the mirror for the food. The study abstract predicts, "The results may have some effects on the design of housing conditions for pigs and may lead to better pig welfare."
However, don't think pigs are the next Darwinian link to humans -- researchers cannot yet say whether the animals realize the pig in the mirror is itself, a finding of self-awareness and advanced intelligence that species like apes and dolphins have passed.
From LA Times article.
And, from another article about the same study:
Mirror usage has been taken to indicate some degree of awareness in animals. Can pigs, Sus scrofa, obtain information from a mirror? When put in a pen with a mirror in it, young pigs made movements while apparently looking at their image. After 5 h spent with a mirror, the pigs were shown a familiar food bowl, visible in the mirror but hidden behind a solid barrier. Seven out of eight pigs found the food bowl in a mean of 23 s by going away from the mirror and around the barrier. Naïve pigs shown the same looked behind the mirror. The pigs were not locating the food bowl by odour, did not have a preference for the area where the food bowl was and did not go to that area when the food bowl was visible elsewhere. To use information from a mirror and find a food bowl, each pig must have observed features of its surroundings, remembered these and its own actions, deduced relationships among observed and remembered features and acted accordingly.
(From Pigs learn what a mirror image represents and use it to obtain information)
Criticisms
Perhaps even more interesting than the results of the mirror test are criticisms of its validity. According to Wikipedia:There is some debate as to the value and interpretation of results of the mirror test.[3][verification needed] While this test has been extensively conducted on primates, there is debate as to the value of the test as applied to animals who rely primarily on senses other than vision.[3][verification needed] Adaptations of the mirror test have been made in other modalities, such as scent. For instance, biologist Marc Bekoff developed a paradigm using dog urine for testing self-awareness in canines.[3][4] Proponents[who?] of the hard problem of consciousness claim that the mirror test only demonstrates that some animals possess a particular cognitive capacity for modeling their environment, but not for the presence of phenomenal consciousness per se.[citation needed] Some critics, such as philosopher Stuart Smith, maintain that it does not establish the existence of self-awareness of an independent character in animals whose self-awareness is solely a product of external experience.[citation needed] Gallup's mirror test has also been criticized as logically invalid because negative results are uninterpretable. Prosopagnosiacs, for example, may fail the test despite having the ability to report self awareness.
Visual notes, connecting this to art or something like that
On a visual note, I read this article about how humans don't actually understand how mirrors work (Humans Do Not Understand Mirror Reflections, Say Researchers) -- that, in studies, humans expect to see themselves in mirrors before they are on an even plane with the mirror, and gauge that their head is roughly life-size when a property of mirrors is that the mirror plane is always 1/2 way between the object and the image of the object, meaning the object is always 1/2 of life size. This property is sort of interesting to me, because if I were to make a 1/2 size, reverse image of one of the animals in a painting or drawing, that would reference mirrors without being so direct as to make two parallel images or put two paintings next to one another, etc.The idea of mirror studies is interesting to me for a couple of reasons. One is that, in the abstract, mirrors are about representation, about that ability to see something as a representation of YOU and recognize that it is NOT you. And for someone interested in representational work, in the act of trying to create facsimiles of real things, this is interesting to me.
Several weeks/months later (December 2, 2010, to be exact), Adam F. emailed a link to Jacob to a story in Scientific American called Kids (and Animals) Who Fail Classic Mirror Tests May Still Have Sense of Self talking about some of the flaws of the mirror test. It brings up familiar things like the false-negative issue, and has some familiar names like a researcher at Emory who worked with Joshua Plotnick on the elephant tests. What was new to me in this article was that, apparently, not all humans pass the mirror test . . . and in many non-western cultures, children won't respond the way we expect them to up until the age of 6, or even much older. The article goes on to theorize about possible cultural reasons for this rather than the assumption, of course, that some people don't have self-awareness.
They had another example of sort of a corollary in animals: "Gorillas are another good example: for many years, nobody thought gorillas could pass the mark test. Turns out, the test was just very uncomfortable for them. Eye contact is a thorny social issue for gorillas, often leading to fights, several researchers said. More than that, gorillas are easily embarrassed, says Robert Mitchell, foundation professor of psychology at Eastern Kentucky University. Instead of messing with the mark in front of the mirror, they would sometimes go away, hide in a corner, and wipe the mark off there. Gorillas got what was going on, they just didn't respond the way we thought they should."
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