In this article, scientist talked about how they were trying to figure out if monkeys of all kinds noticed themselves and their reflections when looking in a mirror.They don’t seem to recognize that it is their own image though when they see their selves in the mirrors. Its almost as if they just think it’s another monkey. The way that the scientist tested this was with the mark test. The mark test is when the scientist places something on the monkey as marking or “implant” as they stated in a spot where the monkey would most recognize the mark. They then place the monkey in front of a mirror to see if the monkey notices it or not. The main monkeys that pass the test are Chimpanzees and scientist believes this because they are the closets to the human species. The ones that notice it, as mentioned in the article, may even turn upside down to grasp a better look at their own image.
After reading this article I learned that, some monkeys obviously recognize these markings and some don’t.A study that was published in September stated that a scientist did an experiment on the rhesus macaque monkey and said that this monkey would normally fail the “mark test” but under certain circumstances the monkey would still recognize itself in the mirror. The reason I picked this article is because monkeys are one of my favorite animals. Also, I think its cool as of the fact that monkeys can somewhat have the same “mind set” as humans do such as the mark test. Even though the monkey may not completely know what is going on, some of them recognize when there is something abnormally on their face just as humans do. Why wouldn’t we recognize something on our face?
Shelbie Hall
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis was a interesting article to read. Yes it is neat to see that monkeys or some types of monkeys do have the ability to at least notice that they are looking at something in a mirror even though its themeselves. But for them to just know this is another monkey is very good. WIth this mark test is does show in a way the mind set a monkey does have and with further testing what else can the monkey show us about their mind set? Benjamin Hartman
ReplyDeleteComment Three:
ReplyDeleteI think this article shows a great deal about the capacity of a monkey's brain and how they can recognize themselves within a mirror image. I found that the "mark test" was an interesting way of testing this theory and overall it makes sense. In response to Hartman, I believe that with further testing not only would we be able to establish exactly how much a monkey can recognize but also if there are certain circumstances which help or handicap the monkeys. For example, the "mark test" only tests when the monkey has a certain marking on them. What if the monkeys didn't have this... would they still have that capability to recognize themselves? If so, does the type of monkey have a great affect on these overall outcomes.
-Blake DiMeglio (Biology 101)
i think if there was no "mark test," the monkeys would still be able to recognize that there are seeing a monkey. maybe the chimpanzees are the only ones who would notice that it is themselves they are seeing, but i think all the monkeys will recognize that they are seeing a monkey. with monkeys being the closet animal to a human being, we have a lot of the same similarities. if we can do it ... then they are capable as welll
ReplyDeletebrittani angelson
this is a cool and interesting article. we learned in our extra credit film the chimps are our most common relative, so i am not surprised that they recognize if not themselves but another chimp in the mirror. although the mark test was used i believe that a chimp knows a chimp when it sees one how else would they do things like mate?
ReplyDeleteAshlee Heyward