Dataset Information

Investigating self-recognition in bonobos: mirror exposure reduces looking time to self but not unfamiliar conspecifics.

ABSTRACT: The question of whether animals have some sort of self-awareness is a topic of continued debate. A necessary precondition for self-awareness is the ability to visually discriminate the self from others, which has traditionally been investigated through mirror self-recognition experiments. Although great apes generally pass such experiments, interpretations of results have remained controversial. The aim of this study was to investigate how bonobos (Pan paniscus) respond to different types of images of themselves and others, both before and after prolonged mirror exposure. We first presented presumably mirror-naive subjects with representations of themselves in three different ways (mirror image, contingent and non-contingent video footage) as well as representations of others (video footage of known and unknown conspecifics). We found that subjects paid significantly less attention to contingent images of themselves (mirror image, video footage) than to non-contingent images of themselves and unfamiliar individuals, suggesting they perceived the non-contingent self-images as novel. We then provided subjects with three months of access to a large mirror centrally positioned in the enclosure. Following this manipulation, subjects showed significantly reduced interest in the non-contingent self-images, while interest in unknown individuals remained unchanged, suggesting that the mirror experience has led to a fuller understanding of their own self. We discuss implications of this preliminary investigation for the on-going debate on self-awareness in animals.

SUBMITTER: Shorland G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7457926 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Investigating self-recognition in bonobos: mirror exposure reduces looking time to self but not unfamiliar conspecifics.

Shorland Gladez G Genty Emilie E Guéry Jean-Pascal JP Zuberbühler Klaus K

PeerJ 20200828

The question of whether animals have some sort of self-awareness is a topic of continued debate. A necessary precondition for self-awareness is the ability to visually discriminate the self from others, which has traditionally been investigated through mirror self-recognition experiments. Although great apes generally pass such experiments, interpretations of results have remained controversial. The aim of this study was to investigate how bonobos (<i>Pan paniscus</i>) respond to different types ...[more]

PMID: 32923178

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Project description:To study individual recognition in animals, discrimination tasks are often conducted by presenting 2D images of real conspecifics. However, animals may discriminate the images merely as visual stimulus combinations without establishing referential relationships to the individuals depicted. In the current study, we investigated whether goats are able to discriminate photos of familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics, whether they not only process the photos as visual stimuli, but also understand them as virtual copies of real conspecifics and whether they grasp the concept of familiarity. Using a computer-controlled learning device, in three tests, goats of two experimental groups (A and B) had to discriminate portrait (Te1), profile (Te2) or headless body photos (Te3) of conspecifics. Tests were presented as 4-choice tasks, with one photo from Group A (rewarded) plus three photos from Group B (distractors). That is, the rewarded photo was familiar to Group A, but unfamiliar to Group B. Finally, in a reversal test (Te4) we reversed this principle. The goats learned the discriminations in Te1 to Te3 within two (Te1 and Te2) and three training days (Te3), respectively, and they needed between 91 [CL (66, 126)] and 174 [CL (126, 241)] trials to reach the learning criterion, with no statistically significant differences between the groups. In Te4, in contrast, the animals took 403 [Group A; CL (291, 557)] and 385 [Group B; CL (286, 519)] trials, respectively, to learn the task. The lack of spontaneous preferences for the photo of the familiar conspecific in the pretests of Te1 to Te3 in Group A, as well as the lack of differences in the number of trials to learn the discriminations between both groups, do not at first glance suggest that the goats established a correspondence between real conspecifics and their 2D representations. However, the higher number of trials in Te4 suggests that both groups formed the learning rule of choosing either the known (Group A) or the unknown goat (Group B) over the course of Te1 to Te3 and then failed after the rule was reversed, providing evidence that goats can associate 2D photos of conspecifics with real animals.

Dataset Information

Investigating self-recognition in bonobos: mirror exposure reduces looking time to self but not unfamiliar conspecifics.

Publications

Investigating self-recognition in bonobos: mirror exposure reduces looking time to self but not unfamiliar conspecifics.

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