Mirror-Induced Behavior in the Magpie ( Pica pica ): Evidence of Self-Recognition methods
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Materials and Methods
In a 4 × 4-m room, a mirror 55-cm wide and 40-cm high was placed on the ground, leaning against a pole, and slightly tilted. The position of the mirror was in the middle of one of the walls with about 1.5-m distance from the wall, allowing the birds to move around the mirror. The tested subject could move freely in the room. After a baseline trial with the mirror replaced by a grey, nonreflective plate, five test sessions of 30-min duration were given to each of the birds. The behavior of the birds was observed from an adjacent room by means of a video system, and trials were videotaped.
Mirror preference and standardized mirror exploration.
For a quantitative estimation of the interest in the mirror, a cage with two opposite compartments was used. Compartments 60 × 100 × 60 cm (length × height × width) were identical except that there was a mirror at the end of one of the compartments and a grey, nonreflective plate of the same size in the other compartment. Between the compartments, there was a partition with two overlapping walls so that the birds could move freely between compartments but could not see from one compartment into the other. Each of the birds received five consecutive trials of 20 min on separate days. The time the birds spent in the compartment with the mirror was measured, and based of the videotapes bouts of close mirror inspection, looks behind the mirror, bouts of contingent behavior, and social behaviors were counted.
Mark test.
In the mark test, each subject was involved in eight test sessions with the conditions, (1) mirror and colored mark, (2) mirror and black mark, (3) no mirror with colored mark, and (4) no mirror with black mark. One session lasted 20 min. Each condition was replicated once, and two colors, either yellow or red, were used for the colored mark. Thus, our subjects were marked in all conditions to prevent cueing by somesthetic input, but the black mark in condition 2 was practically not visible on the black feathers of the throat. Such sham marking, which also had been used in studies with dolphins and elephants [, ], has the advantage that no anesthesia is needed, and it provides a rather rigorous control as except for the difference in appearance, every detail of the procedure is perfectly matched to the conditions with a color mark. In the no-mirror controls, the mirror was replaced b...
Scoring of behaviors.
Before the first mark test, birds were familiarized with the experimental cage and the mirror for at least 5 d. The experimental cage was 120 × 100 × 60 cm (l × h × w) and had a grid floor. The walls also consisted of a grid except for one long wall, which in most of the tests consisted of Plexiglas in order to provide a good view of the bird. The mirror or the nonreflective plate was always placed on the ground at the same short wall of the cage.
Scoring of behaviors.
At the beginning of a test, a bird was taken from its home cage and brought to an adjacent room, where the colored mark or the control mark was fixed. The bird was held by one of the experimenters such that the throat region below the beak was exposed. The head of the bird was shielded by the hand of the experimenter holding the bird so that the bird could not see the fixing procedure. The other experimenter then fixed the self-adhesive colored or black mark. Except for the color of the mark, the handling procedure was exactly the same in each of the experimental conditions. Although the dots used for marking were self-adhesive, we prepared them with double-sided adhesive tape in order to ensure good fixation. The weight of a dot was 16 µg and the diameter 8 mm.
Scoring of behaviors.
After completion of testing of all birds in each of the conditions twice, further tests were applied for the subject Gerti, who showed very clear and consistent self-directed behavior. First of all, a mirror test with four consecutive phases of 5 min was carried out, and in each phase, a new mark was fixed (yellow, blue, black, or red). Secondly, additional tests comparing the behavior in the colored mark and mirror condition with that in the colored mark and no-mirror condition were carried out with a normal cage grid instead of a Plexiglas wall in front of the cage. In experiments with dolphins [ ], the interpretation of the subjects' behaviors was complicated by the fact that the animals had apparently used the reflecting sidewalls of their pool in addition to the mirror provided by the experimenters. Although reflectance by the Plexiglas front was not likely, we sought additional...
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Evidence quotes (6)
In a 4 × 4-m room, a mirror 55-cm wide and 40-cm high was placed on the ground, leaning against a pole, and slightly tilted. The position of the mirror was in the middle of one of the walls with about 1.5-m distance from the wall, allowing the birds to move around the mirror. The tested subject could move freely in the room. After a baseline trial with the mirror replaced by a grey, nonreflective plate, five test sessions of 30-min duration were given to each of the birds. The behavior of the birds was observed from an adjacent room by means of a video system, and trials were videotaped.
For a quantitative estimation of the interest in the mirror, a cage with two opposite compartments was used. Compartments 60 × 100 × 60 cm (length × height × width) were identical except that there was a mirror at the end of one of the compartments and a grey, nonreflective plate of the same size in the other compartment. Between the compartments, there was a partition with two overlapping walls so that the birds could move freely between compartments but could not see from one compartment into the other. Each of the birds received five consecutive trials of 20 min on separate days. The time the birds spent in the compartment with the mirror was measured, and based of the videotapes bouts of close mirror inspection, looks behind the mirror, bouts of contingent behavior, and social behaviors were counted.
In the mark test, each subject was involved in eight test sessions with the conditions, (1) mirror and colored mark, (2) mirror and black mark, (3) no mirror with colored mark, and (4) no mirror with black mark. One session lasted 20 min. Each condition was replicated once, and two colors, either yellow or red, were used for the colored mark. Thus, our subjects were marked in all conditions to prevent cueing by somesthetic input, but the black mark in condition 2 was practically not visible on the black feathers of the throat. Such sham marking, which also had been used in studies with dolphins and elephants [, ], has the advantage that no anesthesia is needed, and it provides a rather rigorous control as except for the difference in appearance, every detail of the procedure is perfectly matched to the conditions with a color mark. In the no-mirror controls, the mirror was replaced by a nonreflective flat grey plate of the same size and in the same position. Conditions, including usage of the two marking colors yellow and red, alternated in balanced order. Colored marks and black control marks were fixed below the beak onto the throat region ( ). Different pigeon breeds are bli...
Before the first mark test, birds were familiarized with the experimental cage and the mirror for at least 5 d. The experimental cage was 120 × 100 × 60 cm (l × h × w) and had a grid floor. The walls also consisted of a grid except for one long wall, which in most of the tests consisted of Plexiglas in order to provide a good view of the bird. The mirror or the nonreflective plate was always placed on the ground at the same short wall of the cage.
At the beginning of a test, a bird was taken from its home cage and brought to an adjacent room, where the colored mark or the control mark was fixed. The bird was held by one of the experimenters such that the throat region below the beak was exposed. The head of the bird was shielded by the hand of the experimenter holding the bird so that the bird could not see the fixing procedure. The other experimenter then fixed the self-adhesive colored or black mark. Except for the color of the mark, the handling procedure was exactly the same in each of the experimental conditions. Although the dots used for marking were self-adhesive, we prepared them with double-sided adhesive tape in order to ensure good fixation. The weight of a dot was 16 µg and the diameter 8 mm.
After completion of testing of all birds in each of the conditions twice, further tests were applied for the subject Gerti, who showed very clear and consistent self-directed behavior. First of all, a mirror test with four consecutive phases of 5 min was carried out, and in each phase, a new mark was fixed (yellow, blue, black, or red). Secondly, additional tests comparing the behavior in the colored mark and mirror condition with that in the colored mark and no-mirror condition were carried out with a normal cage grid instead of a Plexiglas wall in front of the cage. In experiments with dolphins [ ], the interpretation of the subjects' behaviors was complicated by the fact that the animals had apparently used the reflecting sidewalls of their pool in addition to the mirror provided by the experimenters. Although reflectance by the Plexiglas front was not likely, we sought additional controls to ensure that the presence or absence of the mirror was the only predictor of differences in mark-directed behavior.
Machine-readable layer
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