hey guys, welcome to space train.
today we will discuss cold fish have a self- awareness.
IF you notice a smudge when you look in the mirror, you wipe it off.
Seems simple, but only a few particularly clever species such as orangutans and dolphins
share this ability with humans.
But now, incredibly, new research suggests that the cleaner wrasse—a tiny, tropical
reef fish—can recognize itself too, making it the first fish to do so.
Scientists have long used a mirror test to evaluate whether an animal is capable of visual
self-recognition—and potentially self-awareness.
Self-awareness involves having a working knowledge of your own mental states, like thoughts and
emotions, along with an understanding of how you physically appear; self-recognition, in
contrast, is limited to knowing the latter.
It's unclear how much self-recognition implies self-awareness.
By placing a dot or mark on a subject, and then placing the animal in front of a mirror,
researchers can observe if the creature investigates the mark.
Passing the test suggests an animal understands that the marred reflection is a representation
of its own marked body, and not just another member of its species.
Only those regarded as the brainiest non-human species on Earth have passed the mirror test:
great apes, dolphins, elephants, and magpies.
But the new research, first released online in BioRxiv and now published in PLOS Biology,
raises the possibility that an advanced sense of self and self-awareness is far more widespread
in the animal kingdom than scientists had thought.
A species of fish, the cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus), responds to its reflection and
attempts to remove marks on its body during the mirror test -- a method held as the gold
standard for determining if animals are self-aware.
The finding, publishing on February 7 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, suggests
that fish might possess far higher cognitive powers than previously thought, and ignites
a high-stakes debate over how we assess the intelligence of animals that are so unlike
ourselves.
The study's researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and Osaka City University,
say that their results provide clear evidence of behaviours that appear to pass through
all phases of the mirror test, but that the interpretation of what these mean is less
clear: Does a 'pass' mark in the mirror test demonstrate that fish possess self-awareness
-- a cognitive trait thought only to be present in primates and some other mammals?
Or can the mirror test be solved by very different cognitive processes than previously thought?
"The behaviours we observe leave little doubt that this fish behaviourally fulfils all criteria
of the mirror test as originally laid out.
What is less clear is whether these behaviours should be considered as evidence that fish
are self-aware -- even though in the past these same behaviours have been interpreted
as self-awareness in so many other animals," says Dr Alex Jordan, senior author on the
study.
The ability to perceive and recognise a reflected mirror image as self (mirror self-recognition)
is considered a hallmark of cognition across species.
To test for this phenomenon in fish, the researchers applied the classic 'mark' test to the cleaner
wrasse -- a marine fish best known for its behaviour of "cleaning" external parasites
from client fish -- by placing a coloured mark on fish in a location that can only be
seen in a mirror reflection.
In order to gain a 'pass', the test requires that the animal must touch or investigate
the mark, demonstrating that it perceives the reflected image as itself.
This is clearly a challenge for animals such as fish that lack limbs and hands.
The researchers observed that fish attempted to remove the marks by scraping their bodies
on hard surfaces after viewing themselves in the mirror.
Fish never attempted to remove transparent marks in the presence of a mirror, or coloured
marks when no mirror was present -- suggesting that marked fish were responding to the visual
cue of seeing the mark on themselves in the mirror.
Further, unmarked fish did not attempt to remove marks from themselves when interacting
with a marked fish across a clear divider, nor did they attempt to remove marks placed
on the mirror itself -- suggesting that fish were not innately reacting to a mark resembling
an ectoparasite anywhere in the environment, for instance due to hard-wired feeding responses.
Dr Jordan acknowledges the controversial nature of the study, saying: "Depending on your position,
you might reject the interpretation that these behaviours in a fish satisfy passing the test
at all.
But on what objective basis can you do this when the behaviours they show are so functionally
similar to those of other species that have passed the test?"
The PLOS Biology editors also recognized the potential for controversy, and commissioned
an accompanying commentary from Professor Frans de Waal, a leading primatologist at
Emory University who has studied mirror self-recognition in mammals.
While de Waal finds the fish study intriguing, he urges caution in interpreting it.
In doing so, he calls for less black-and-white approach to animal self-awareness.
"What if self-awareness develops like an onion, building layer upon layer, rather than appearing
all at once?" asks de Waal.
"To explore self-awareness further, we should stop looking at responses to the mirror as
its litmus test.
Only with a richer theory of the self and a larger test battery will we be able to determine
all of the various levels of self-awareness, including where exactly fish fit in."
If cleaner wrasse have indeed passed the mirror test, does that make them self-aware?
Well, possibly.
However, it may also mean that the test itself doesn't show us what we think it does.
In the new publication, primate psychologist Francis de Waal similarly argues in a corresponding
piece the the findings argue for a more nuanced view of mirror self-recognition where animals
exist somewhere on a continuum of understanding their own reflections, rather than a binary,
pass-fail system.
For Michael Platt—a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania not involved
with this study—the research is "fascinating and well-executed."
Platt says that the study demonstrates that either many more animals have a sense of "self"
than we've realized, or the mirror test has little to do with recognizing "self."
Instead, learning to use mirrors may just be a way of helping an animal define the boundaries
of its own body.
"It's impossible to know which of these two conclusions is correct, since nonhuman
animals cannot provide self-report or otherwise discuss their experiences with us," says
Platt.
And if the test really does reveal this abstract sense of self-awareness?
It means that fish—and potentially many other animals with rarely considered internal
lives—may have minds that are surprisingly similar to our own.
That's all today, see you next time, don't forget to free up your brain, and stay with
us.
there are lots of interesting subjects we should talk about.
For more infomation >> It is the Lord - C'est le Seigneur - Duration: 7:52. 
For more infomation >> Virginia's largest business program and competition is celebrating it's 5th season - Duration: 3:37. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét