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

SUBMITTER: Shorland G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7457926 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature