Features of the genre of romantic symphonic poem. Liszt's symphonic poem "Preludes"

This question is directly related to a problem that has long worried the minds of animal psychologists: do animals have self-awareness or is it only inherent in humans?

In 1970, American zoologist Gordon G. Gallup put an end to this debate with a very simple experiment: he decided to observe how primates behave in front of a mirror.

It turned out that lower monkeys - macaques, baboons - react to their reflection as if there was another individual in front of them. They take aggressive poses and try to intimidate the “stranger.”

Higher apes(chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans), on the contrary, recognize themselves in the mirror. At first, they also mistake their reflection for another animal. But gradually - on the fourth or fifth day - they begin to search the fur, looking in the mirror.

To eliminate all doubts, Gallup decided to conduct such an experiment. The animal was anesthetized and the brow ridges and tips of the ears were tinted on the euthanized animal, that is, places that cannot be seen without a mirror. For the purity of the experiment, odorless paint was used. When the chimpanzees came to their senses, they did not notice that they had been painted. But, being in front of the mirror, they showed genuine interest in the painted areas and began to actively touch their eyebrows and the tips of their ears. This experiment clearly proved that primates understood that they saw themselves in the mirror: they remembered what they looked like before and were aware that changes had occurred in their appearance.

Chimpanzees withstood more difficult tests with a mirror. They were given some simple hand exercise, but the animal could not see its hands directly, but only their reflection in the mirror. Chimpanzees coped with this task, but it is not so easy for humans.

Currently, there are 5 known species of animals that can recognize themselves in the mirror: chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, dolphins and elephants.

The remaining animals either did not notice their reflection, or saw in it another animal, which they perceived either as a rival or as an object for courtship. So, it turned out that fish, for example, begin to attack their reflection, parrots, on the contrary, begin to look after it, and cats and dogs are completely indifferent to their reflection.

Of the birds, magpies have this quality - in the Gallup test, they tried to remove the sticker from themselves with their paws and beak, thereby proving that they had learned mirror image yourself and not another animal.

But crows, which are famous for their intelligence, do not recognize themselves in the mirror, but treat their reflection as if they were another bird and try to attack it. But New Caledonian crows successfully coped with another task related to a mirror: the birds were asked to find boxes of food that were out of their field of vision, focusing on the reflections of these boxes in the mirror. The crows solved this problem so quickly that scientists were surprised by their success.

In this regard, we can recall one funny case, which occurred in Canada. In east Vancouver, someone began methodically breaking the side mirrors of parked cars. Residents were shocked to see if there was a maniac in their area. However, it soon became clear that the mirrors were broken... by a woodpecker! Ornithologists explained to residents that the woodpecker sees “another woodpecker” in the mirror, “fights” it and, in the end, wins. To deceive the woodpecker, residents were advised to cover their car mirrors with something, which they did: car owners began putting plastic bags from the supermarket on the side mirrors of their cars. However, the woodpecker turned out to be insightful: he guessed where his enemy was hiding, and began to tear apart these bags, got to the mirrors and still “defeated” his imaginary “enemy.” Unfortunately, further fate this warbird is unknown. One day the woodpecker suddenly stopped breaking mirrors and disappeared in an unknown direction.

And Australian ornithologists who needed to catch several male lyrebirds for research successfully used traps with a mirrored back wall. The bird comes there to sort things out with its rival.

By the way, experiments with reflection in the mirror were also carried out with people. It turned out that children begin to become aware of themselves at the age of 1.5-2 years (and apes - at 4-5 years old, that is, already at mature age).

This question is directly related to a problem that has long worried the minds of animal psychologists: do animals have self-awareness or is it only inherent in humans? In 1970, American zoologist Gordon G. Gallup put an end to this debate with a very simple experiment: he decided to watch how primates behave in front of a mirror...

Great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans), on the contrary, recognize themselves in the mirror. At first, they also mistake their reflection for another animal. But gradually - on the fourth or fifth day - they begin to search the fur, looking in the mirror.

When the chimpanzees came to their senses, they did not notice that they had been painted. But, being in front of the mirror, they showed genuine interest in the painted areas and began to actively touch their eyebrows and the tips of their ears. This experiment clearly proved that primates understood that they saw themselves in the mirror: they remembered what they looked like before and were aware that changes had occurred in their appearance.

Chimpanzees have also been able to withstand more difficult mirror tests. They were given some simple hand exercise, but the animal could not see its hands directly, but only their reflection in the mirror. Chimpanzees coped with this task, but it is not so easy for humans.

Currently, there are 5 known species of animals that can recognize themselves in the mirror: chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, dolphins and elephants.

Of the birds, magpies have this quality - in the Gallup test, they tried to remove the sticker from themselves with their paws and beak, thereby proving that they recognized themselves in the mirror image, and not another animal.

In this regard, we can recall one curious incident that occurred in Canada. In east Vancouver, someone began methodically breaking the side mirrors of parked cars. Residents were shocked to see if there was a maniac in their area. However, it soon became clear that the mirrors were broken... by a woodpecker!

Ornithologists explained to residents that the woodpecker sees “another woodpecker” in the mirror, “fights” it and, in the end, wins. To deceive the woodpecker, residents were advised to cover their car mirrors with something, which they did: car owners began putting plastic bags from the supermarket on the side mirrors of their cars.

However, the woodpecker turned out to be insightful: he guessed where his enemy was hiding, and began to tear apart these bags, got to the mirrors and still “defeated” his imaginary “enemy.” Unfortunately, the further fate of this warbird is unknown. One day the woodpecker suddenly stopped breaking the mirrors and disappeared in an unknown direction*.

And Australian ornithologists who needed to catch several male lyrebirds for research successfully used traps with a mirrored back wall. The bird comes there to sort things out with its rival.

Elephants learned to use a mirror

In an experiment conducted at the Bronx Zoo (New York), scientists found that elephants recognize themselves in a mirror image and can even examine those parts of their body that are usually inaccessible to their gaze, writes The Washington Post. Before this, biologists believed that only humans and apes had the ability to recognize themselves in a mirror.

According to the experts who conducted the study, the ability to identify oneself in the mirror is closely related to the characteristics of a complex social behavior elephants. It is known that these animals actively communicate with each other, and also help old and sick individuals from their herd. The ability for “altruism” and “empathy” would be impossible without a clear self-identification, biologists say.

"This is key to understanding the evolution of intelligence. These results suggest that this ability can develop in different animals with different structure brain," says biologist Diana Reiss, who took part in the study. Previously, similar experiments were carried out on dolphins with success, but gave less clear results.

True, not all of the researchers’ colleagues agree with them in assessing the results of the experiments. For example, Robin Dunbar from the British Academy of Sciences believes that based on experiments with mirrors one should not draw conclusions about the nature of the origin of the mind.

Experiment in Gabon

Innovative French photographer Xavier Hubert Brierre and his wife traveled to Gabon to conduct an interesting experiment. They placed mirrors in several places and began to observe the reactions of animals passing by.

Despite the prevalence of insects in African forests, Xavier says he enjoyed the experiment. The photographer hid the cameras in protective boxes and installed motion sensors that turned on recording mode when forest inhabitants approached the mirrors.

The most interesting reactions were observed in leopards and gorillas, which were quite aggressive towards their imaginary rivals.

The leopard looks intently at its reflection in the mirror.

Gorilla greets his reflection.

Curious chimpanzee.

Photographer Xavier Hubert Brière.

Chimpanzees examine a mirror.

Photographer Xavier Hubert Brière near the mirror.

Dolphins recognize themselves in the mirror

People have long considered the dolphin, a mammal from the order of whales, to be one of the most highly developed animals. And now, scientists have recently found very important confirmation of this.

It turned out that the dolphin has an excellent memory. Its brain is close in size to the human brain. Biological system orientation in the water space - the dolphin sonar - is more complex than the sonar system of the most modern submarine and surface ships of the Navy. In addition, dolphins have a highly organized social structure.

With its meaningful facial expressions and ability to learn, the dolphin has repeatedly baffled scientists who studied these marine animals, both in aquariums and dolphinariums, and in the wild. However, in last decades scientists have achieved some success in unraveling the intricacies of the dolphin psyche and social life, and began to create a more detailed psychological picture these amazing animals.

Recently, two studies were reported, conducted in parallel and independently of each other. In both cases, scientists concluded that dolphins are able to recognize themselves in the mirror. And such recognition is considered important sign self-awareness.

New experiments with dolphins have sparked debate about brain evolution as the brains of primates and dolphins have evolved in different ways for 60 million years. According to Professor Laurie Marino of Emory University in Atlanta, the dolphin brain, unlike the brain of primates, lacks a frontal lobe. The dolphin's brain is large and spherical. Large hemispheres - with numerous convolutions. In the cortex cerebral hemispheres up to 30 billion nerve cells, and a dolphin can process great amount incoming acoustic and other information.

Dolphins, like apes, recognize themselves in the mirror. This is evidenced by the results of research that began in 1998 at the New York Aquarium with two bottlenose dolphins born in captivity. First, the researchers applied a fake mark to the test dolphin's body using a marker filled with water rather than dye. After several rehearsals, during which the animal became accustomed to this procedure, the researcher marked the dolphin with shaded triangles or circles.

In total, each animal was marked 16 times and separately from the others. Everything was filmed on videotape. After marking, each dolphin swam to the mirror and examined the place that was marked. At the same time, the dolphins often twisted and turned to get a better look at the mark.

As always, some scientists were skeptical about the results of new research, while others were enthusiastic. The first believe that there is still little evidence of self-awareness, that there may be coincidences and accidents. The latter believe that the analytical abilities of dolphins have now been proven. For example, Professor Gordon Gallup cautiously called the research results "suggestive." At the same time, the scientist is not entirely sure that the experimental dolphins saw themselves in their reflection, and not another animal.

The results of these studies, conducted at the Sea World Dolphinarium in Durban, South Africa, were published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology. The publication is based on the work of a number of scientists from different countries.

"Surely an animal with such complex system social relations has the ability to self-awareness and self-identification, because such socially active animals have to make decisions at every step about relationships with other individuals and, as it were, predict their motivations,” says Richard Connor, a biologist professor at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, who was the first in 1999 discovered that dolphins in Shark Bay in Australia live in peculiar communities numbering up to 14 individuals. “But,” the professor continues, “we are still far from fully elucidating all the intricacies of the increased mental abilities of dolphins.”

Currently, there are 5 known species of animals that can recognize themselves in the mirror: chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, dolphins and elephants.

However, the woodpecker turned out to be insightful: he guessed where his enemy was hiding, and began to tear apart these bags, got to the mirrors and still “defeated” his imaginary “enemy.” Unfortunately, the further fate of this warbird is unknown. One day the woodpecker suddenly stopped breaking mirrors and disappeared in an unknown direction. *.

And Australian ornithologists who needed to catch several male lyrebirds for research successfully used traps with a mirrored back wall. The bird comes there to sort things out with its rival.

Elephants learned to use a mirror

According to the experts who conducted the study, the ability to identify oneself in a mirror is closely related to the complex social behavior of elephants. It is known that these animals actively communicate with each other, and also help old and sick individuals from their herd. The ability for “altruism” and “empathy” would be impossible without a clear self-identification, biologists say.

"This is key to understanding the evolution of the mind. These results suggest that this ability can develop in different animals with different brain structures," says biologist Diana Reiss, who took part in the study. Previously, similar experiments were carried out successfully on dolphins, but gave less clear results.

Experiment in Gabon

The most interesting reactions were observed in leopards and gorillas, which were quite aggressive towards their imaginary rivals.

The leopard looks intently at its reflection in the mirror.

Gorilla greets his reflection.

Curious chimpanzee.

Photographer Xavier Hubert Brière.

Chimpanzees examine a mirror.

Photographer Xavier Hubert Brière near the mirror.

Dolphins recognize themselves in the mirror

It turned out that the dolphin has an excellent memory. Its brain is close in size to the human brain. The biological orientation system in water space - the dolphin sonar - is more complex than the sonar system of the most modern submarine and surface ships of the Navy. In addition, dolphins have a highly organized social structure.

With its meaningful facial expressions and ability to learn, the dolphin has repeatedly baffled scientists who studied these marine animals, both in aquariums and dolphinariums, and in the wild. However, in recent decades, scientists have achieved some success in unraveling the intricacies of the dolphin psyche and social life, and have begun to create a more detailed psychological portrait of these amazing animals.

New experiments with dolphins have sparked debate about brain evolution, as the brains of primates and dolphins evolved in different ways over 60 million years. According to Professor Laurie Marino of Emory University in Atlanta, the dolphin brain, unlike the brain of primates, lacks a frontal lobe. The dolphin's brain is large and spherical. Large hemispheres - with numerous convolutions. There are up to 30 billion nerve cells in the cerebral cortex, and a dolphin can process a huge amount of incoming acoustic and other information.

“Surely an animal with such a complex system of social relationships has the ability to self-awareness and self-identification, because such socially active animals have to make decisions at every step about relationships with other individuals and, as it were, predict their motivation,” says Richard Connor, a professor of biology from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, which was the first to discover in 1999 that dolphins in Shark Bay in Australia live in peculiar communities of up to 14 individuals. “But,” the professor continues, “we are still far from fully elucidating all the subtleties of the increased mental abilities of dolphins.”

A curious incident occurred in east Vancouver, Canada. Someone kept hitting the side mirrors of parked cars. Soon everything became clear thanks to ornithologists. It turned out that the “hooligan” was... a woodpecker.

Ornithologists explained to residents that the woodpecker sees “another woodpecker” in the mirror, “fights” it and, in the end, wins. They were advised to cover their car mirrors with something to deceive the woodpecker. Locals were forced to wrap the side mirrors of their cars with plastic bags from the supermarket. But it did not help. The woodpecker turned out to be smart and guessed where his enemy was now hiding! He tore the bags, got to the mirror and... “defeated” the imaginary “enemy”! One day the “hooliganism” stopped by itself and the woodpecker disappeared somewhere.
In 1970, the American scientist Gordon Gallop conducted an experiment in which several sleeping chimpanzees had a spot of paint applied to one of their eyebrows and to the opposite ear. The animals, upon waking up, touched the colored areas of the body no more often than the rest, that is, they did not feel any consequences of this manipulation. However, after seeing themselves in the mirror, these chimpanzees began to actively feel the colored areas. Thus, it was possible to prove that chimpanzees understood that they saw themselves in the mirror, remembered what they looked like before, and realized that changes had occurred in their appearance. This simple test was able to clearly confirm the presence of self-awareness in chimpanzees.
Then similar experiments were carried out on other monkeys. Besides chimpanzees, only orangutans and gorillas recognize themselves in the mirror.

Similarly, a huge variety of different animals were tested - cats, dogs, fish, sea lions, elephants, parrots, pigeons, etc. But, alas, none of them recognized themselves in the mirror. They either did not notice their reflection, or saw in it another animal, which they perceived either as a rival or as sexual partner. So, it turned out that fish, for example, begin to attack their reflection, parrots, on the contrary, begin to look after it, and cats and dogs are completely indifferent to their reflection.
In 2001, American researchers Diana Reis and Laurie Marino applied several marks to dolphins on their bodies and heads. There was a large mirror hanging on one of the walls of the pool.
The dolphins began to look at the marks on themselves, which convincingly proved their ability to recognize themselves in the mirror.

At the Bronx Zoo (New York, USA), they attached a large mirror to the cage where the elephants were kept and began to observe what would happen. Seeing him, the elephants became very interested and began to try to look behind the mirror. They stood on their hind legs and looked over the fence to see what was beyond it, knelt down and tried to look behind the mirror from below. After some time, the elephants began, following their reflection, to perform various movements in front of the mirror - they waved their trunks, jumped around it, walked slowly or rhythmically, looked into it unexpectedly, etc. Later they began to spin around in front of the mirror, trying to see in the reflection those parts of their body that they usually cannot see.

To prove that elephants really recognize themselves in the mirror, one elephant had a white cross drawn on the right side of her forehead, clearly visible on her skin. The elephant did not notice this cross and calmly walked with it. However, when she approached the mirror and saw her reflection there, she began to persistently try to touch her forehead with her trunk in order to erase this cross.

Currently, scientists know that there are five species of animals that are capable of self-awareness: chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, dolphins and elephants.

Based on materials from Stanislav Kozlovsky