This Cat Did Not Figure Out How Mirrors Work
It's cute! But not a major step forward for feline cognition. Earlier today, Gawker posted a video of a housecat looking at itself in a mirror, slowly raising one paw and looking with wonder at its own reflection. "Smart cat figures out how mirrors work," reads the headline. Let's delve very deeply into a minute-long YouTube clip of a cat doing something weird! Mirrors are used in cognitive science in a task called the "mirror self-awareness test," or MSR test. It's a controversial experiment, developed back in 1970 by a University of Albany psychologist named Gordon Gallup who later wrote a scholarly article called "Does Semen Have Antidepressant Properties?" The MSR test requires that an animal be given some kind of visual oddity, usually a dot or two of color, on a part of their body only visible through a mirror (often on a part of the face or head). If the...