Hikaku seiri seikagaku(Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry)
Online ISSN : 1881-9346
Print ISSN : 0916-3786
ISSN-L : 0916-3786
review-article
Study of mirror self-recognition: Animals’ self-awareness and its evolution
Shumpei SOGAWA
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JOURNAL FREE ACCESS FULL-TEXT HTML

2025 Volume 42 Issue 1 Pages 57-62

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Abstract

鏡像自己認知(MSR)とは鏡に映った自己像を自己と認識できることであり,個体が自己意識を持つ証拠とされている。1970年にチンパンジーで初めて報告されて以降,MSRは複数の種で見つかったが,MSRが示す自己意識のレベルやその進化に関する論争は未だに続いている。その原因は,ある動物がマークテストに不合格であることを自己意識がない証拠とみなすこと,自己意識そのものと自己意識があるからできることを混同している可能性などにある。本稿ではこれまでの自己意識とその進化に関する諸仮説を整理し,実際に報告された動物行動とそれらの実験結果(事実)を再解釈していく。特に2022,2023年に報告された魚類のホンソメワケベラのMSRと写真自己認知(PSR)の研究に注目し,それらがこれまでの仮説をどのように更新し,動物行動の研究にどのような影響を与えるのかを考えてみたい。最後に自己意識の進化に関する新たな仮説を提唱したい。

Translated Abstract

Mirror self-recognition (MSR) is a skill to recognize own reflection in a mirror as oneself, and is considered to be evidence that an individual animal has self-awareness. Since it was first reported in chimpanzees in 1970, MSR has been found in some species, but the level of self-awareness represented by MSR and hypotheses regarding its evolution remain unclear. The reasons for this include the fact that an animal’s failure to pass the mark test is considered the evidence of a lack of self-awareness, and the fact that self-awareness itself is confused with what can be done because of self-awareness. Particularly there are significant debates between big-bang theory and gradual theory regarding the evolution of self-awareness, and between kinesthetic visual matching hypothesis and mentalistic view hypothesis regarding the level of self-awareness. I would like to discuss how the research on MSR and photo self-recognition (PSR) in the fish cleaner wrasse, reported in 2022 and 2023, updates these hypotheses and how it will affect studies on animal behavior. I will propose a new hypothesis regarding the evolution of self-awareness by reinterpreting reported animal behaviors and their experimental results.

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