ArticleAnimal cognition2022
Through the looking glass: how do marked dolphins use mirrors and what does it mean?
Article in Animal cognition, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- The modal-modular model of animal self-representation: a comparative and operational framework.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Article
- Conscious birds.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Cleaner fish with mirror self-recognition capacity precisely realize their body size based on their mental image.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Minding the Minds: A Primer on Cognitive Challenge for Marine Mammals in Human Care.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Review
- The prefrontal cortex of the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus Montagu, 1821): a tractography study and comparison with the human.Brain structure & function · 2023Article
- Geckos differentiate self from other using both skin and faecal chemicals: evidence towards self-recognition?Animal cognition · 2023Article
- Mirror stimulation in Eurasian jays (PeerJ · 2023Article
- Roosters do not warn the bird in the mirror: The cognitive ecology of mirror self-recognition.PloS one · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Mirror-guided self-inspection is seen as a cognitive hallmark purportedly indicating the existence of self-recognition. Only a few species of great apes have been reported to pass a standard mark test for mirror self-recognition in which animals attempt to touch a mark. In addition, evidence for passing the mark test was also reported for Asian elephants, two species of corvids, and a species of cleaner fish. Mirror self-recognition has also been claimed for bottlenose dolphins, using exposure of marked areas to a mirror as evidence. However, what counts as self-directed behaviour to see the mark and what does not has been debated. To avoid this problem, we marked the areas around both eyes of the animals at the same time, one with visible and the other with transparent dye to control for haptic cues. This allowed the animal to see the mark easily and us to investigate what side was exposed to the mirror as an indicator for mark observation. We found that the animals actively chose to inspect their visibly marked side while they did not show an increased interest in a marked conspecific in the pool. These results demonstrate that dolphins use the mirror to inspect their marks and, therefore, likely recognise a distinction between self and others.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.