Why do animals not react to their own reflection in a mirror?

Question

Elephants are supposedly the only animals that are 'self aware', as are dolphins. but still, any animal looking at itself in the mirror, even if it does not realize that it is looking at itself, would all the more react to the 'other animal'. Why doesn't my cat?

Answer 1

I have a cat who is the same way.  When she was a kitten she would attack the mirror like crazy, hiss, meow etc.  Perhaps they just realize that they are staring at themselves via some "magical device"?

Answer 2

many do react  to their reflection, but most of those think it is another animal

many animals do ignore their reflection, though

Answer 3

Who says they don't react?  My dumba$$ cat attacks himself in my dressing mirror just about every day.

Wild biords often try to attack their own reflection in windows.

The question is sefl-awareness?? Does the animal KNOW that it is lookign at itself>

I would say, generally, no.  But how would a wild animal know what itself looks like?  They do not have mirrors.  So they real questions is, can teh aniaml LEARN what it looks like?

Answer 4

you'll get a conglomeration of ans. on this one. a lot of animals are self-aware, most have been mentioned. your cat is the norm for its kind but some cats react violently and some with curiosity - probably their nature. many other species react differently within their group. but animal testing has progressed way beyond self awareness. read the book "coco" it's about a great ape with a vocabulary better than a lot of the contributors on these pages. she also had the ability to comprehend abstract thoughts such as love and hate. she picked her own husband on a computer, spoke aslam (american sign for the deaf) exactly like a proficient human (creating shortcuts and slang) and taught it to her children. dolphins,dogs and even pigs have displayed abilities far beyond what we thought possible several years ago. maybe they have been talking to us for years and we just wouldn't hear them. after all it would be tuff sitting down to eat something after you just got done talking sports with him.

Answer 5

My cats have mostly ignored mirrors. That's not a good test.

To test it, put a little paint on the cat's face while it's asleep, and put a mirror in a handy spot for when it wakes up.  See if the cat tries to remove the spot.  That's what elephants do.

Mirrors, other than pools of water, are not terribly common in the wild.  So even if an animal has a mental model of itself, not recognizing itself in a mirror may not occur to them.  For that reason, though the mirror test can demonstrate self awareness, it can't demonstrate lack of self awareness.

Cats certainly appear to be self aware.

There's a crow that has repeatedly shaped a wire into a hook to fetch a small bit of meat that is at the bottom of a deep tube.  I've no idea if this talent for tool making requires an animal that passes the mirror test.

Answer 6

If you were a dog or a cat or a horse you wouldn't realise that the image was a reflection of yourself. Most animals in this situation think that they are face to face with another member of their species.

The exception is the great apes – chimps, gorillas and orang-utans are capable of recognising themselves in the mirror – and of course the Naked Apes: us.

What's interesting is what the other apes do when presented with a mirror: they use mirrors to groom themselves, pick food out of their teeth and make faces at themselves for entertainment – i.e. more or less the same reactions as us Naked Apes.

http://www.sirc.org/publik/mirror.html

Answer 7

They do who said they don't?