The most interesting part of BBC's The Secret You in my opinion was the self awareness/ mirror experiment. In this experiment, a red mark is placed somewhere on a baby's face. The baby is then placed in front of a mirror. IF he is self aware, he will move to touch his own face and investigate the mark. I learned that only humans older than about twenty months and chimps pass this test.
I once did an experiment with the cat in which I held him in front of a mirror to see what his reaction would be. The result? Nothing. He did not react as if seeing another cat nor did he act as if he recognized himself. I'm not sure that he recognized that the image in front of him was even different than the rest of the wall. Young babies in front of mirrors react similarly: the 16 month old baby did not seem to even realize that the image in front of him (his reflection) represented another living creature. This brings me to the title of my blog post: What do cats and babies have in common? A lack of self awareness, that's what. This begets a whole other list of questions. Without being self aware, what do cats and babies think about all day? Do they think? How do they think without language? It is questions such as these that I wish our class explored more in depth. 
What do cats and babies have in common?
Watching the first lecture about child psychology earlier today I was very pleased to see a post about infants and their thought process. In response to your question "Do they think?" I believe that infants do. While not necessarily consciously, studies have demonstrated that infants can recall upon events and show more stimulation to new events over older events. The depth perception test on infants proved that babies who can crawl or walk have a grasp on the depth of their surroundings. While babies may struggle to identify themselves, they still have the ability to think and remember to some degree.
This blog post is very intriguing. At what point do babies become aware of themselves? What changes in their thinking, and how does it change to make them aware of certain things? I too believe infants think, but their thoughts must be so much less complex than we could imagine. This would be an extremely interesting topic to talk more in depth about.
replied to comment from radd0032
| March 28, 2012 5:58 PM
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I wrote this wondering the same questions. If every conscious thought that goes through our heads is a result of language (as they taught in lecture) and self awareness, what is thought without either of those things? The cognitive processes of babies and cats are unimaginable to us because we literally cannot think the way they do (if they do in fact think).
This is an interesting and curious post. You bring up some great psychological ideas and concepts. I've done a lot of research on animal testing and, similar to cats, elephants have no self-awareness of a red "x" mark that was drawn on their forward. This is an argument that with a lack of self-awareness, they also lack pain and feeling. Therefore, animal testing is acceptable. Although your post is not about animal testing, I found the similarities to be fascinating. I've worked with children in the past as well during summer jobs and such and have never really paid attention to their lack of awareness. They are always concerned about the here and now. It's amazing how little attention they pay to themselves yet give others a lasting impression by gazing for hours. Great connections and development of the psychological aspect of both the human and cat minds.
I am so glad I read this post! I too thought of some of these questions during the lectures about all thoughts stemming from language. I have wondered so many times what my cat does all day while I am not home and what is going through his mind for those long hours by himself! :) It is crazy to think that babies are born without all of these qualities that we now take for granted, and they learn them so fast! How incredible the entire process truly is!
Interesting topic! I believe babies think before they are self aware. I think humans naturally tend to be very curious and want to learn. Babies always seem to be soaking up new things. Obviously babies think very differently from adults, i doubt you could form their thoughts into actual sentences.
Not going to lie, your title confused me a bit. But by the end I found your blog to be very interesting! It's a creative experiment that says a lot about how babies develop in those first months and years. A lack of self awareness is hard to imagine at this age, but I agree with the posts above, infants do think about what is going on around them. They may not be aware of themselves quite yet, but I find it rather implausible that until they realize who they are that there is nothing going on in their heads. Infants are constantly exposed to new things and just the simple fact of processing them leads me to believe that they are thinking about them as well.
It's fascinating how humans younger than 20 months lack self-awareness. This ability is something that is often taken for granted by adults and yet is a crucial part of development. Parents are often surprised at how late this ability forms because they watch their infant become infatuated with a mirror frequently. I didn’t realize it either before reading this post, as I didn't realize that there is a difference between actually recognizing oneself in the mirror and simply being entertained it. Before this point of self-awareness, babies look at their reflections in the mirror happily and may even have conversations with themselves, but they are not quite aware yet that they are looking at themselves in the mirror. I was a nanny last summer for an 18 month old and it was fascinating to watch how she slowly made the connection that she was looking at herself in the mirror by the end of the summer.
I believe that infants do think, and they are self-aware, to a certain extent. In lecture, we learned about the studies that were done that showed that when infants were looking at their legs on a screen, they did not give it as much attention as when it was another infant's legs. This shows that they have at least a slight awareness of their physical bodies. This makes sense though, because at that age, I doubt infants would be able to truly differentiate faces, therefore when they see themselves in a mirror, they must believe that is either just an image or another child. Recognizing ones self in a mirror is not necessarily about self-awareness, but about self-recognition and about understanding exactly how a mirror functions.
Thanks for the post! I love cats, and I've wondered some of the questions brought up in your blog as well. I've tried getting my cat to look at himself in mirror too- and just like your cat, he paid no attention to his reflection whatsoever. I've been told before that cats don't really think in the same way humans do. For example, we might think, "I'm hungry, I should go find something to eat." Cats, however, don't have this same line of conscious thought, but rather they act on instinct. They just know that they're hungry- so they go find food. Of course, I have no idea if that idea is true or not, but it definitely is a reasonable hypothesis!