Anything was noticed, the fish, otherwise they would have behaved scarcely so strange. Again and again you are not rubbing your neck on the bottom of the aquarium – a behavior that was previously wrasse is known from the Plaster. In between, swam the animals over to the mirror that was mounted in to your Aquarium. They saw the brown stain on her neck? They wondered, perhaps even above the mark, according to the Motto: “What have I got here?”

What is actually in the cleaner wrasse was going on, not be able to answer the researchers had missed the animals to the spot and give them a mirror into the Aquarium. But you can, on the Basis of their data, provocative questions: Detects a cleaning wrasse in the mirror? And would be the logical conclusion, that cleaning fish is a I-sense – something that has yet to trust only a very few species?

The spot

So it goes in the current study, which has been published by a research team led by Alex Jordan from the Max-Planck-Institute in Konstanz, Germany in the journal “PLOS Biology” to recognize, only superficially, to cleaner fish and their cognitive abilities. In addition, the biologists are more fundamental questions: for example, when an animal of I-consciousness of speak, and whether it is at all meaningful criteria and a method of measurement exist.

As the Latter is often used is the mirror test, the cleaner fish completed. The animal gets a color mark on a part of the body, it can only see in the mirror. About a chimpanzee attack at the spot on his nose, as proof that he has understood: This guy looks me from the mirror, the I’m self.

has developed Since the psychologist Gordon Gallup mirror test nearly 50 years ago, he is considered a kind of litmus test. It must exist, anyone who wants to get into the circle of those species, which the human being is an I-consciousness similar to his own. As befits an illustrious Club, is the number of members is small, many have failed at the entrance examination. Chimpanzees have taken the hurdle of the First to, later, elephants, dolphins and corvids.

“There is not a Test, by the things so clear for us to decide.”Alex Jordan, a scientist at the Max-Planck-Institut in Konstanz

And now the tropical, five to seven centimeters long, cleaning wrasse? The neck RUB is interpreted by the researchers as equivalent response to about a chimpanzee who touches his color stain with your fingers. As a control, the researchers gave fish without a stain a mirror into the Aquarium and highlighted some of the animals with a transparent substance. This should ensure that the treatment influenced the behavior. In none of these cases, the fish touched on the neck. And as you got instead of the mirror a conspecific, separated by a transparent plate, into the pool were also different than in front of a mirror.

However, objections to the study, despite the careful control of building lead. Only three of the four fish passed the Test. However, the small sample size is a Problem with many such studies, and that only a part of the subjects is performing successfully, for example, in the case of elephants and crows.

mirror test as evidence

The authors draw a clear – and at first glance perhaps surprising – conclusion: you do not speak for the successful completion of the Tests “as proof of a I-to see the awareness in cleaning fish.” It is questionable whether the mirror test is no good really with security as a supporting document for an I-consciousness. “There is not a Test, by the things are so clear,” says Jordan. Accordingly, the much-cited mirror test would be far less meaningful than a long time, and it probably also long-held views, I would have to-awareness of other species on the test bench.

Similar to the behavioral scientist Frans de Waal has researched a lot myself in the mirror test, and as a member of the scientific Board of the magazine the study commented it looks. He also pleads the case for taking the Test less important. He was divided on the issue, he writes in his book, “Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?”: “I do believe that spontaneous self know means something. It could be a sign of a stronger ego-consciousness. Still, I can’t imagine that I lack awareness in other species.”

Above all, De Waal criticized thinking that in the case of this subject often predominant black-and-white: Either an animal can recognize itself in the mirror and be self-aware or not. “Wouldn’t it also be possible that the I-consciousness is developed according to the onion principle, instead of at once showing up?”, in answer to De Waal.

lettuce leaf on the head

From an evolutionary point of view, this theory of the intermediate stages is plausible, and a number of studies with different animal species they support. Although you do not recognize spontaneously in the mirror, can not learn, for example, rhesus monkeys this, when the mark is only noticeable visually, but is also felt. This can be, for example, with a laser beam, which is irritating to the skin. In addition, rhesus monkeys can distinguish with ease, whether you are moving a Cursor on a screen by means of a Joystick, or if a Computer takes over the control.

Capuchin monkeys are covered also by the mirror test, but safer, nevertheless, to your own mirror image a lot of self, as if you sit opposite a conspecific behind a plexiglass window. And dogs can use a mirror as a tool to find behind a corner of the hidden food. A lot speaks for the fact that the ability to self-knowledge in the animal Kingdom, which has gradually developed. The mirror test alone, but this complexity does not.

the question of whether any animal is posing similar to that of the man in front of the mirror and the self sets the scene. Of elephants and chimpanzees, at least, is well-known that you explore in front of the mirror with your mouth, finally, you do not get to see otherwise. The Orang-Utan-female Suma who lived in the 70s in the osnabrück Zoo, went a step further, as the behavioral scientist Gerti Dücker reported: “Suma, a lettuce leaf, put on the head and ran to a mirror. She sat directly in front of it, watching her head-covering and ran her Hand over it.” Who knows what went through the head. Maybe it was the old question: “Am I beautiful?”

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 25.02.2019, 19:28 PM