Self-awareness is a most peculiar trait among animals. Dogs will bark angrily at a mirror because they don’t realize they’re looking at themselves, and most other animals are similarly clueless when they’re subjected to a formal procedure called the mirror test. First the animal is dabbed with a spot of odorless dye, then it’s put in front of a mirror to contemplate this strange-colored spot. The test is to see whether the animal touches the spot or indicates in some other way that it realizes the spot is on its own body (such as turning the body to get a better view of the spot). Chimpanzees
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