St Andrews Research Repository

St Andrews University Home
View Item 
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  • Login
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

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

Thumbnail
View/Open
Shorland_2020_PeerJ_Self_recognition_CC.pdf (1.077Mb)
Date
28/08/2020
Author
Shorland, Gladez
Genty, Emilie
Guéry, Jean-Pascal
Zuberbühler, Klaus
Keywords
Delayaed self-recognition
Mental representation
Looking time
Pan paniscus
Self-awareness
Primate cognition
Social intelligence
Intelligence
Theory of mind
Evolution of cognition
BF Psychology
DAS
Metadata
Show full item record
Altmetrics Handle Statistics
Altmetrics DOI Statistics
Abstract
The question of whether animals have some sort ofself-awareness is a topic of continued debate. A necessary precondition forself-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 resultshave remained controversial. The aim of this study was to investigate howbonobos (Pan paniscus) respond todifferent types of images of themselves and others, both before and afterprolonged mirror exposure. We first presented presumably mirror-naive subjectswith representations of themselves in three different ways (mirror image,contingent and non-contingent video footage) as well as representations ofothers (video footage of known and unknown conspecifics). We found thatsubjects paid significantly less attention to contingent images of themselves(mirror image, video footage) than to non-contingent images of themselves andunfamiliar individuals, suggesting they perceived the non-contingent self-imageas novel. We then provided subjects with three months of access to a largemirror centrally positioned in the enclosure. Following this manipulation,subjects showed significantly reduced interest in the non-contingentself-images, while interest in unknown individuals remained unchanged,suggesting that the mirror experience has led to a fuller understanding oftheir own self. We discuss implications of this preliminary investigation forthe on-going debate on self-awareness in animals.
Citation
Shorland , G , Genty , E , Guéry , J-P & Zuberbühler , K 2020 , ' Investigating self-recognition in bonobos : mirror exposure reduces looking time to self but not unfamiliar conspecifics ' , PeerJ , vol. 8 , e9685 . https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9685
Publication
PeerJ
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9685
ISSN
2167-8359
Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2020 Shorland et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Description
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement no. 283871 and the Swiss National Science Foundation (Social learning in primate communication: 31003A_166458 / Coordinating joint action in apes: Testing the boundaries of the human interaction engine: CR31I3_159655).
Collections
  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
https://peerj.com/articles/9685/#supplemental-information
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/20592

Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Advanced Search

Browse

All of RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunderThis CollectionBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunder

My Account

Login

Open Access

To find out how you can benefit from open access to research, see our library web pages and Open Access blog. For open access help contact: openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Accessibility

Read our Accessibility statement.

How to submit research papers

The full text of research papers can be submitted to the repository via Pure, the University's research information system. For help see our guide: How to deposit in Pure.

Electronic thesis deposit

Help with deposit.

Repository help

For repository help contact: Digital-Repository@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Give Feedback

Cookie policy

This site may use cookies. Please see Terms and Conditions.

Usage statistics

COUNTER-compliant statistics on downloads from the repository are available from the IRUS-UK Service. Contact us for information.

© University of St Andrews Library

University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013532.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter