Whatever the glass test tells us, beluga fish pass

During a few hours of watching an underwater video from an aquarium in New York, a whale named Natasha stretches her neck, pirouettes, shakes her head, and shakes her head in front of a two-way mirror. His daughter Maris does the same. According to a new study published in PLoS Oneboth animals display self-recognition behavior in the mirror—an ability to perceive that has long been considered a sign of self-awareness, and which had never been documented in beluga news.

If the results are successful, belugas will join the very short list. The mirror recognition test (MSR) has been passed, with varying degrees of reliability, by humans (from two years of age), a few primates (chimps, bonobos, orangutans, and—just to argue—gorillas), Asian elephants, bottlenose dolphinsperhaps magicperhaps orcasand, if you can believe it, a cleaners. That’s right. No dogs, no cats, no monkeys. Many of the brands we think of as self-aware have been tried and failed.

Looking in the mirror

So what exactly are these tests, and what are they supposed to tell us?

Here’s the trick: Even though the animal isn’t looking, the researchers place a marker in the area they can see. A mirror is then placed in front of the animal while the researchers look on. If the animal touches or looks at the symbol while looking at its reflection, it recognizes that the image in the mirror is itself. The test is smart and easy to do – and almost no organisms pass it.

Why is this a self-awareness test in the first place? Thoughts, the return of psychologist Gordon Gallup (who introduced the test in 1970), and that to use the mirror as a tool to control your body, you have to show yourself as something different. A piece of silver glass, in this speech, can open many doors of wisdom.