Daniel Povinelli was in high school when he first read about a clever experiment, published in 1970, that showed chimpanzees—but not monkeys–can recognize themselves in mirrors.
“I bought into the story of mirrors and self-recognition hook, line, and sinker,” he recalls. “Because it is a compelling story.”
All it took was a simple mirror, or so the story went, to reveal that our close chimpanzee relatives are self-aware, with the same kind of basic self-concept that humans have.
“The idea that there are other creatures out there for whom we can only access their mental states, their self-consciousness, through the trick of a mirror was somehow just deeply inviting,” recalls Povinelli, now a scientist with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
He ended up devoting years of his life to studying mirrors and higher-order consciousness. As a result, he now has a much different view on what animals may be doing as they study their own reflections—but says after a half-century, the public seems stuck on the scientific tale that drew him in as a teenager.
Short Wave Podcast
It’s science for everyone, using a lot of creativity and a little humor. Join host Maddie Sofia for science on a different wavelength.