Whatever the mirror test tells us, beluga whales pass it
Whatever the mirror test tells us, beluga whales pass it
无论镜像测试说明了什么，白鲸都通过了它
In hours of underwater video footage from a New York aquarium, a beluga whale named Natasha stretches her neck, pirouettes, nods, and shakes her head in front of a two-way mirror. Her daughter Maris does much the same. According to a new study published in PLOS One, both animals show the behavioral hallmarks of mirror self-recognition—a cognitive ability long considered a marker of self-awareness, and one that had never before been documented in beluga whales. 在纽约一家水族馆长达数小时的水下视频片段中，一只名叫娜塔莎（Natasha）的白鲸在双面镜前伸展脖子、旋转、点头并摇头。她的女儿玛丽斯（Maris）也做了几乎同样的动作。根据发表在《PLOS One》上的一项新研究，这两只动物都表现出了镜像自我识别的行为特征——这是一种长期以来被视为自我意识标志的认知能力，此前从未在白鲸身上得到证实。
If the result holds up, belugas join a remarkably short list. The mirror self-recognition test (MSR) has been passed, with varying degrees of confidence, by humans (starting around age two), a handful of great apes (chimps, bonobos, orangutans, and—somewhat contentiously—gorillas), Asian elephants, bottlenose dolphins, probably magpies, possibly orcas, and, if you can believe it, a cleaner wrasse. That’s it. No dogs, no cats, no monkeys. Plenty of species we had assumed were self-aware have been tested and failed. 如果这一结果成立，白鲸将加入一个极其简短的名单。镜像自我识别测试（MSR）已被人类（约两岁起）、少数类人猿（黑猩猩、倭黑猩猩、红毛猩猩，以及存在争议的大猩猩）、亚洲象、宽吻海豚、可能的喜鹊、可能的虎鲸，甚至令人难以置信的裂唇鱼通过（尽管置信度各异）。仅此而已。没有狗，没有猫，没有猴子。许多我们曾认为具有自我意识的物种在测试中都失败了。
Looking at the mirror
审视镜子
So what is this test, exactly, and what is it supposed to tell us? The procedure is this: While the animal isn’t looking, researchers place a mark on a spot it can only see via a reflection. A mirror is then put in front of the animal while the researchers watch. If the animal touches or examines the mark while looking at its reflection, it comprehends that the figure in the mirror is itself. The test is intuitive and easy to perform—and almost no species passes. 那么，这个测试到底是什么？它又能告诉我们什么？测试过程如下：在动物不注意时，研究人员在其只能通过反射才能看到的部位做一个标记。随后，研究人员在动物面前放置一面镜子并进行观察。如果动物在看着镜中影像时触摸或检查该标记，就说明它理解镜中的形象正是它自己。这个测试直观且易于执行，但几乎没有物种能通过。
Why is this a test of self-awareness in the first place? The logic, going back to the psychologist Gordon Gallup (who invented the test in 1970), is that to use a mirror as a tool for inspecting your own body, you need a mental representation of yourself as a distinct entity. A piece of silvered glass, in this telling, can pry open a lot of cognitive doors. 为什么这会被视为自我意识的测试？其逻辑可以追溯到心理学家戈登·盖洛普（Gordon Gallup，他在1970年发明了该测试），他认为要将镜子作为检查自身身体的工具，你需要有一个将自己视为独立实体的心理表征。按照这种说法，一块镀银的玻璃可以打开许多认知之门。
Gallup himself is a tough grader. Plenty of positive results have been announced over the decades, and he’s pushed back on most of them. If an animal doesn’t show clear self-directed behavior—actively trying to touch or examine the mark—the test, in his view, fails. On that score, the beluga results sit right at the edge. 盖洛普本人是一个严苛的评分者。几十年来，许多积极的测试结果被公布，但他对其中大多数都提出了质疑。在他看来，如果动物没有表现出明确的自我导向行为——即主动尝试触摸或检查标记——那么测试就是失败的。从这个标准来看，白鲸的测试结果正处于及格边缘。
Revisiting old data
重温旧数据
The footage is more than two decades old. “After the initial study we were hoping to conduct more studies with additional belugas over the next years but that was not possible,” senior author Diana Reiss said in an email. “Inspired by the numerous studies over the past years reporting on different aspects of beluga whale cognition and behavior, we decided to revisit and digitize the original videotapes and conduct a rigorous analysis.” 这些视频片段已有二十多年的历史。资深作者戴安娜·赖斯（Diana Reiss）在电子邮件中表示：“在最初的研究之后，我们曾希望在接下来的几年里对更多的白鲸进行研究，但这无法实现。受到过去几年关于白鲸认知和行为不同方面的众多研究的启发，我们决定重新审视并数字化原始录像带，并进行严谨的分析。”
Some tapes had degraded in the meantime, and portions of the original data were lost. The original experiment exposed four belugas to the mirror together, in their usual social housing. Only Natasha and Maris showed sustained interest, so only they advanced to the experimental phase, where they were marked with waterproof lipstick during feeding sessions. Because the animals were awake and could feel the application, the researchers ran sham-mark controls: the same procedure, but without the pigment. The whales only showed self-recognition-like behaviors after being actually marked. 在此期间，一些录像带已经退化，部分原始数据丢失。最初的实验将四只白鲸共同安置在它们平时的社交环境中，并让它们接触镜子。只有娜塔莎和玛丽斯表现出了持续的兴趣，因此只有它们进入了实验阶段，在喂食期间被涂上了防水唇膏作为标记。由于动物们处于清醒状态且能感觉到涂抹过程，研究人员进行了假标记对照实验：即执行相同的程序，但不使用颜料。结果显示，这些白鲸只有在被真正标记后，才表现出类似自我识别的行为。
“The two beluga whales showed the same progression of behavioral stages reported for other species that show evidence of MSR,” first author Alexander Mildener said in an email. “The whales did not exhibit self-directed behaviors in the absence of the mirror or in the control condition. One of the whales also passed the mark test by demonstrating mark-directed behavior by orienting the area of her body that was temporarily marked toward the mirror.” 第一作者亚历山大·米尔德纳（Alexander Mildener）在电子邮件中说：“这两只白鲸表现出的行为阶段演变，与其他表现出MSR证据的物种所报告的一致。在没有镜子或对照条件下，这些白鲸没有表现出自我导向行为。其中一只白鲸还通过将身体被临时标记的部位转向镜子，表现出针对标记的行为，从而通过了标记测试。”
The sample is tiny, but that’s not unusual—if even a single animal can do something, the species is in principle capable of it. The harder question is whether what Natasha and Maris did really counts. Some of the most-cited behaviors—bubble bite play, barrel rolls—are documented forms of solo play that belugas engage in even without a mirror nearby. Their increased time spent at the reflective surface is suggestive, but doesn’t rule out the possibility that the mirror was just a novel source of stimulation. 样本量很小，但这并不罕见——如果哪怕只有一只动物能做到某事，原则上该物种就具备这种能力。更难的问题是，娜塔莎和玛丽斯的行为是否真的算数。一些被引用最多的行为——如咬泡泡游戏、桶滚——是白鲸即使在没有镜子时也会进行的已知独处游戏形式。它们在反射面停留时间的增加具有暗示性，但不能排除镜子仅仅是一个新奇刺激源的可能性。
The one genuinely mark-directed behavior came from Natasha, who repeatedly pressed the marked area—behind her right ear—against the mirror. Without arms, she couldn’t point. It’s the strongest data point in the study, but a softer kind of evidence than a chimp or an elephant typically delivers. 唯一真正针对标记的行为来自娜塔莎，她反复将标记区域（右耳后方）压向镜子。由于没有手臂，她无法用指点。这是研究中最有力的数据点，但与黑猩猩或大象通常提供的证据相比，这是一种较弱的证据。
Even granting that belugas pass—and given that dolphins do, and orcas plausibly do too, it wouldn’t be a shock—the more interesting question is what a result like this tells us. Or, conversely: What does failing actually mean? One of the most persistent criticisms is that many animals fail simply because mirrors carry little relevance in their perceptual world. 即使承认白鲸通过了测试——考虑到海豚已经通过，而虎鲸也可能通过，这并不令人震惊——更有趣的问题是，这样的结果告诉了我们什么。或者反过来说：失败到底意味着什么？最持久的批评之一是，许多动物失败仅仅是因为镜子在它们的感知世界中几乎没有意义。
Anil Seth, a neuroscientist at the University of Sussex, told Ars in an email that “the MSR is not a test of consciousness itself, but a test of a particular kind of the ability to recognize one’s own body (or face). Failure to reliably pass the MSR does not mean that an animal lacks consciousness, or any form of selfhood.” The test, he added, is motivated by what feels natural to humans. “It may well not feel natural to other species, even if they have the same kind of ability,” He said. “This raises various other reasons why animals might ‘fail’ the test: they may not like making eye contact, they might not like mirrors, or they simply just might not care enough about a very strange task.” 萨塞克斯大学的神经科学家阿尼尔·塞斯（Anil Seth）在给Ars的电子邮件中表示：“MSR并不是对意识本身的测试，而是对识别自身身体（或面部）这一特定能力的测试。未能可靠地通过MSR并不意味着动物缺乏意识或任何形式的自我。”他补充说，这项测试的动机源于人类认为“自然”的事物。“对于其他物种来说，即使它们具备同样的能力，这可能也并不自然。这引出了动物可能‘失败’的其他各种原因：它们可能不喜欢眼神交流，可能不喜欢镜子，或者仅仅是对这种非常奇怪的任务不够关心。”
Seth has argued that consciousness may be something like an integrated experience of our perceptions, broadly construed—a view consistent with the increasingly mainstream idea that consciousness exists in degrees and forms across many species. If perceptions are central to the sense of self, that sense will look different. 塞斯认为，意识可能类似于我们感知的一种综合体验（广义上理解）——这一观点与日益成为主流的理念相一致，即意识在许多物种中以不同的程度和形式存在。如果感知是自我意识的核心，那么这种意识在不同物种中看起来也会有所不同。