Did you have to learn who you are?

I never really knew this happened before now, so this was really interesting to read about. It's weird because it's a stage in your life that you can't actually remember just for the fact that it is that stage. Also, the fact that it only occurs in humans and apes makes me wonder what other animals are thinking in place of what we normally think.

I think this is strange, but fascinating. It's strange that we don't recognize ourselves until one to two years into our life, but fascinating as to how quickly we learn once we do finally recognize or become aware of ourselves. I wonder if those who have higher levels of intelligence had an earlier recognition of self awareness? Also does it deal with a part of our brain that hasn't developed yet when we were young that helps us become aware of ourselves?

I've actually learned about this before. I find it really interesting that we don't have a sense of self until age 1 or 2. It seems crazy that you could look in a mirror and not realize that the person staring back is you. There are actually five levels of awareness in early life. So it's interesting that it doesn't just all occur at one time. It takes different parts of our brain to develop in order for awareness to start occuring.

I really find this interesting since its not something you typically think about on a daily basis. I kinda of want to know if seeing how we look while we grow up effects our attitude towards life and others. What I mean is that if some guy or girl meets physical characteristics commonly associated with being "cute" or "handsome" will they be more likely to be stuck up or humble towards others?

Actually dolphins elephants are able to recognize themselves in mirrors, so they probably have some sort of self awareness or secondary consciousness as well (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/10/061030-asian-elephants.html; http://www.pnas.org/content/103/45/17053.abstract). It seems that the ability to reason and infer is required to have a self awareness, which make it really interesting to think that some animals are able to do this on an almost scary level. It's becoming more and more apparent that humans and other animals really aren't as different as we once thought.

I find this post very interesting for me especially, because compared to my friends and other members of my family, I am unable to recall much of my younger life and hardly have any memories of being a toddler. I think research on when someone becomes self aware would be pretty difficult to conduct, because at the age it happens, babies or young children lack the communication skills for us to be sure when it really does happen.

After reading these posts, a question came to mind: does the average time it takes a baby to realize oneself in the mirror vary across cultures and nations? For example, Americans are often centered around the individual, while many Asian nations are centered around the community. Thus, do American babies tend to recognize their reflection in the mirror at an earlier age than Asian babies, since Americans are more self-centered than other cultures?

When my cousin was several months，I liked to ask her who was that in a mirror. She seemed curious about the reflection in the mirror, but she couldn’t figure out herself. According to the book, the hippocampus partially formed in fancy( Mishkin, Malamut& Bachevalier1984; Schacter& Moscovitch,1984; Zola,1997). I think because fetuses are developing their brain structures during the early period. And memory is related with many part of our brain structures. Infants may be familiar with encode or store memories in that time. I like this topic about memory of children.

This is funny because I have a home video of me as a baby trying to get a ball out of a mirror when it's actually on the floor behind me. My entire family is sitting around watching me run into the mirror and laughing. You bring up a lot of good questions. It would be interesting to find out if it's a gradual or instant realization. It's something that probably isn't really testable though. I wonder how we think about events that are occurring when we aren't aware of ourselves. It's a weird concept.

My earliest memory is when I was about 2 years of age. I remember using a onion slicer when my mom told me not to because she thought I would get hurt. I ended up cutting my finger and I hid in my room with the fear of getting in trouble. I think I was able to recall this event because it was one of my first encounters with fear and pain. A memory that gives you strong emotions are more likely to be remembered, even at an early age.

This is a very interesting subject because we take for granted that we know who we are and we think that it's ridiculous to not know who you are. I think it is one of the factors that separates our brains from species that are less intelligent but there are also many other things about us that make humans more intelligent.