Comparing the Performances of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in Two Self-Awareness Tasks.

ABSTRACT: Self-awareness has most commonly been studied in nonhuman animals by implementing mirror self-recognition (MSR) tasks. The validity of such tasks as a stand-alone method has, however, been debated due to their high interindividual variation (including in species deemed self-aware like chimpanzees), their reliance on only one sensory modality, their discrete outcomes (i.e., pass/fail) and, in general, questionned regarding their ability to assess self-awareness. Therefore, a greater variety of methods that assess different aspects of the self, while simultaneously contributing to a more gradualist view of self-awareness, would be desirable. One such method is the body-as-obstacle task (BAO), testing for another dimension of body self-awareness. The ability to understand one's own body as an

SUBMITTER: Vanhooland LC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11886032 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature