Do cats recognize themselves in the mirror?

When your cat looks in the mirror, does she see herself?

It’s an interesting question, and one without a satisfying answer, unfortunately.

Science tells us that cats don’t pass what’s called the “mirror test.” Only a few hyper-intelligent, hyper-social animals do, including chimpanzees, certain whales, and some super-smart bird species.

Oh, and a few breeds of ants and a particular type of fish. They pass, too. The fish actually do better than the chimpanzees on the test.

Until cats start talking, we may never really know what cats see when they look in the mirror. But before I dive into what we do know about cats and mirrors, and the limitations of the mirror test, I offer this video as food for thought:

What is the mirror test?

The mirror test actually isn’t really even about mirrors. It’s supposed to be a test about self-awareness in animals.

Self-awareness is the ability to see yourself as separate from others. It involves the understanding of identity: the ability to acknowledge your own existence, and recognize your own emotions and behaviors as distinct from others’.[1]

Self-awareness (or self-recognition) is actually a pretty sophisticated mental ability. Human babies only just begin to develop this faculty at around 15 to 18 months.[2]

So, what do mirrors have to do with testing an animal’s ability to be self-aware?

Mirrors, orangutans, and self-awareness

The mirror test actually started with Charles Darwin, the biologist who developed the theory of evolution.

He once saw an orangutan in a zoo throw a tantrum after being teased with an apple by her zookeeper. It made him wonder whether animals experience the same emotions as humans.

He became a little obsessed with the zoo orangutans, and started hanging out by their enclosure, giving them objects to interact with. He gave them mirrors and watched them watch themselves making faces. Darwin’s notes show that he questioned whether the orangutans recognized themselves in the glass.[3]

A hundred years later, in the 1970s, a biologist named Gordon Gallup, Jr. was asking some of the same questions. He devised an experiment, called the mirror self-recognition test, that was supposed to prove whether a species of animals is self-aware. This behavioral test is still used today, not just with animals, but with children, too.

What exactly is the mirror self-recognition test?

There’s more to it than this, but in short, the mirror self-recognition test involves anesthetizing an animal, and marking them with paint or a sticker on body part that the animal can’t usually see on themselves (like an ear, or forehead), and then giving them access to a mirror.

If the animal looks in the mirror, sees the paint or sticker on his body that he wouldn’t normally be able to see, and then tries to remove the sticker or touch the paint, it would indicate that the animal understands that the reflection in the mirror is himself, not another animal.

There’s more to the test than this, and there are ways of conducting the test without anesthesia when anesthesia isn’t possible or ethical. But this is the general idea of the test.

Which animals pass the mirror test?

The list of animals who pass is very, very short.

A couple species of dolphins and killer whales pass. Bonobos, orangutans, and about 75% of chimpanzees pass, but results are mixed with gorillas. (There’s an interesting fact about gorillas and the mirror test, which I’ll get into in a minute.)

The house mouse, of all creatures, passes. Magpies, a very smart kind of bird, passes, but only if the sticker applied to their throats isn’t black. Pigeons trained to use mirrors pass, but street pigeons wouldn’t. Manta rays, cleaner wrasses (a kind of neatnik fish), ghost crabs, the Mimic octopus, and some ant species pass.

Do cats pass the mirror test?

No. Cats do not pass the mirror test. Neither do dogs, nor do a wide range of other extremely intelligent, highly social animals.

Does this mean that cats and dogs are not self-aware? Does it mean that cats and dogs do not understand that what they are looking at in the mirror is themselves?

Perhaps the mirror test is accurate and cats and dogs and other animal species have no sense of themselves.  

Or, perhaps, the mirror test is just the wrong test for certain animals, including cats.

What are the problems with the mirror test?

There are a lot of things wrong with the mirror test. But even when the test “works” there’s the question of whether it really works. Here are a few of the major concerns about the validity of the test.

Animals are first and foremost themselves

Animal species have behaviors that are essential to their own survival and critical to living amongst their own kind that could interfere with the ability of the mirror test to test anything.

For example, many monkey species fail the mirror test, not necessarily because they have no self-awareness, but because they don’t have time to consider what a mirror really is.

When shown a mirror, monkeys respond quickly and aggressively to their own reflections because in their world, another monkey would be a threat. If a monkey wants to survive, she wouldn’t have the luxury of exploring and learning about how mirrors work.

Wild Western gorillas do not pass the mirror test, but some gorillas raised with humans do. This is likely because direct eye contact in gorilla culture is considered an aggressive gesture, making wild gorillas disinclined to stare at their own reflections. But gorillas raised with humans, who consider eye contact to be friendly body language, would have the opportunity to learn about and understand mirrors.

Interestingly, cats avoid direct eye contact with each other for the same reasons that wild gorillas do. It’s possible that some cats are faced with a mirror, they simply don’t really look at themselves in it.

Some animals don’t care about mirrors or spots

Elephants are among the smartest and most social animals on the planet, but two out of three elephants given the mirror test failed it.

Interestingly, the two “failed” elephants performed other behaviors that clearly indicate self-awareness.

It could be that some animals, like elephants, just aren’t interested in mirrors, or just don’t think a spot on their body is worth noticing, or just don’t feel motivated to react to their own reflections.

Some animals, like cats, just aren’t vision-oriented

The mirror test isn’t a great test for animals who don’t primarily experience the world through their eyes.

Humans have some of the best eyesight in the animal kingdom, so it’s no wonder we’re so interested in our own reflections.

Cats and dogs, on the other hand, rely mainly on their sense of smell and hearing. The mirror test might just not be an effective test for certain animals.

When researchers devised an odor version of the “mirror” test, garter snakes passed it.[4]

What if cats designed a “mirror test” for us?

What if cats designed a mirror test for us? Maybe it would test to see if, when presented with a stranger wearing one of his own shirts, a human stopped to smell that person.

Most people would probably fail such “mirror test” because humans are just not tuned into scent, especially their own. Plus, humans consider sniffing other people to be rude. But failing a cat-designed “mirror test” would not mean that we’re not self-aware.

Animals, including cats, demonstrate that they’re self-aware in other ways

Animals show that they are self-aware in ways that the mirror test just doesn’t capture.

It’s been proven that songbirds, for example, can tell the difference between their own songs and those of other birds of the same species.[5]

And cats demonstrate an incredible sense of their own selves, especially when it comes to body awareness and their physical prowess. Without this body sense, cats would not be able to leap to the top of the refrigerator, squeeze into the narrow space behind the credenza, or walk the tightrope of the second-story handrailing.

We don’t know if the mirror test is really testing for self-awareness

The mirror test might not be testing what we think it tests.

Just because an animal touches a paint spot on its forehead doesn’t mean that it understands that the image in the glass is his own.

Perhaps the animal sees the “other animal” in the mirror and that just cues her to touch her own face.

Until animals start talking, we’ll never really know.

A final word about cats and mirrors

We don’t know what cats see and think when they look in a mirror. With all of its species and cultural bias, the mirror test fails to give us any insight into the mind of a cat. That’s what I believe, anyway.

Perhaps a cat who is looking in a mirror is wondering who that weird odorless cat is, staring back at him.

Or, perhaps the cat is thinking, “Whatever it is, it moves! I must hunt it!”

Or maybe, the cat is thinking, “I really am as stunning as I always assumed I was.”

You decide.

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Dawn LaFontaine

Dawn LaFontaine is a lifelong animal lover who always seems to have a little pet hair in her keyboard. Her blog, Kitty Contemplations, helps cat guardians better understand and care for the special beings they share their lives and homes with. Her cat-products business, Cat in the Box, sells beautiful, well-made, and award-winning products that she designed to meet the biological needs of cats.