Self recognition in primates: A comparative approach to the bidirectional properties of consciousness.

Abstract

A technique is described in which organisms are provided with extended exposure to mirrors and then given an explicit test of self-recognition (accomplished through the unobtrusive application of marks to facial features visually inaccessible without a mirror). Use of this procedure with chimpanzees and orangutans turns up striking evidence of self-recognition, with patterns of self-directed behavior emerging after only 2 or 3 days. In support of the widely held view that the self-concept may develop out of social interaction with others, the capacity for self-recognition in chimpanzees appears to be influenced by early social experience. To date, however, attempts to demonstrate self-recognition in all other species except man have failed. The phyletic limits of this capacity may have important implications for claims concerning the evolutionary continuity of mental experience. Consciousness has always been an elusive topic in psychology. As a working hypothesis, however, it seems reasonable to suppose that there can be at least two dimensions to conscious experience. The basic distinction is between having an experience and being aware of having an experience. In this sense, human consciousness is typically bidirectional. In effect, most people can direct their attention outward or inward. Not only can I be consciously aware of events in the world around me, but I can become the object of my own attention. I can contemplate my own death. My brain can think about my brain and even speculate about the mechanisms of its own functioning. This reflective dimension of consciousness is isomorphic with self-awareness. In other words, the bidirecThe author would like to thank R. E. Hicks, J. M. Suls, and L. Tornatore for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Requests for reprints should be sent to G. G. Gallup, Jr., Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, New York 12222. tional properties of consciousness translate into consciousness and self-consciousness. To be able to think about oneself presupposes a sense of identity, and for some time man has been held unique in his capacity to form a self-concept (e.g., Ardrey, 1961; Black, 1968; Buss, 1973; Kinget, 197S; Lorenz, 1971). By being able to contemplate his own existence, man is in the seemingly unique and certainly precarious position of being able, at least in principle, to take steps to modify that existence. In fact, one widely respected evolutionary biologist (Slobodkin, in press) sees the development of self-awareness as having emancipated man from some of the otherwise deterministic and unrelenting forces of evolution. The history of science, however, can be viewed in part as having brought about gradual changes in man's conception of man, and with such changes man may eventually have to relinquish, or at least temper, his claim to special status (e.g., Gallup, Boren, Gagliardi, & Wallnau, in press). Primate research poses one of the greatest contemporary threats to traditional notions about man.