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“It’s me!” fish recognizes itself in photographs

#1
C C Offline
A big step forward in vertebrate cognitive function research
https://www.omu.ac.jp/en/info/research-n...23252.html

RELEASE: A research team led by Specially Appointed Professor Masanori Kohda from the Graduate School of Science at the Osaka Metropolitan University has demonstrated that fish think “it’s me” when they see themselves in a picture, for the first time in animals. The researchers found that the determining factor was not seeing their own body but seeing their face. These findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In this study, relevant experiments were conducted with Labroides dimidiatus, commonly known as a cleaner fish, which are known to be able to recognize themselves in mirrors and regularly attack other unfamiliar cleaner fish who intrude on their territory. Each cleaner fish was presented with four photographs: a photo of themselves; a photo of an unfamiliar cleaner; a photo of their own face on an unfamiliar cleaner’s body; and a photo of unfamiliar cleaner’s face on their own body. Interestingly, the cleaner fish did not attack photos with their own faces but did attack those with the faces of unfamiliar cleaner fish. Together these results indicate that the cleaner fish determined who was in the photograph based on the face in the photo but not the body in the similar way humans do.

To negate the possibility that the fish considered photographs of themselves as very close companions, a photograph mark-test was conducted. Fish were presented with a photograph where a parasite-like mark was placed on their throat. Six of the eight individuals that saw the photograph of themselves with a parasite mark were observed to rub their throats to clean it off. While showing those same fish pictures of themselves without parasite marks or of a familiar cleaner fish with parasite marks did not cause them to rub their throats.

“This study is the first to demonstrate that fish have an internal sense of self. Since the target animal is a fish, this finding suggests that nearly all social vertebrates also have this higher sense of self,” stated Professor Kohda.

The design of the cover shows CO2 and pyruvic acid, the raw materials used in this artificial photosynthesis research, on the right side of the scales, with fumaric acid and the plastic it is used to synthesize on the left. Furthermore, the equal balance of both scales is indicative of the carbon neutrality of the process.
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#2
Magical Realist Offline
Quote:Fish were presented with a photograph where a parasite-like mark was placed on their throat. Six of the eight individuals that saw the photograph of themselves with a parasite mark were observed to rub their throats to clean it off. While showing those same fish pictures of themselves without parasite marks or of a familiar cleaner fish with parasite marks did not cause them to rub their throats.

That's amazing to me, although somewhat disturbing as now I must ethically struggle with a relatively self-conscious creature being so delicious! Smile


[Image: yGt5cq8.jpg]
[Image: yGt5cq8.jpg]

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#3
stryder Offline
Does it explain Anglerfish for their evolutionary "selfy stick"? Tongue
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#4
RainbowUnicorn Offline
what fish have mirrors to look at themselves in ?
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#6
Zinjanthropos Offline
For the amount of parasites a cleaner fish is exposed to in a lifetime it should come as no surprise that occasionally one ends up on them. The natural reaction to seeing what appears to be a parasite on a brother may be to make sure that same parasite isn’t affecting them. To be safe, just rub the same area on a rock to be rid of it. Plenty of things people see make them react as if they’re affected. What guy doesn’t squeeze his legs together when watching someone else get hit in the groin, same thing. I think someone is giving the fish too much credit. Cleaner fish are exposed to more parasites than mirrors. Why wouldn’t a cleaner fish try and remove/clean a parasite from a fellow cleaner fish? No sympathy for the brother/competition, just making sure of own health……perhaps a tiny bit of self awareness more likely than self recognition?
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#7
confused2 Offline
(Feb 17, 2023 01:37 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: For the amount of parasites a cleaner fish is exposed to in a lifetime it should come as no surprise that occasionally one ends up on them. The natural reaction to seeing what appears to be a parasite on a brother may be to make sure that same parasite isn’t affecting them. To be safe, just rub the same area on a rock to be rid of it. Plenty of things people see make them react as if they’re affected. What guy doesn’t squeeze his legs together when watching someone else get hit in the groin, same thing. I think someone is giving the fish too much credit. Cleaner fish are exposed to more parasites than mirrors. Why wouldn’t a cleaner fish try and remove/clean a parasite from a fellow cleaner fish? No sympathy for the brother/competition, just making sure of own health……perhaps a tiny bit of self awareness more likely than self recognition?

Quote:. Six of the eight individuals that saw the photograph of themselves with a parasite mark were observed to rub their throats to clean it off. While showing those same fish pictures of themselves without parasite marks or of a familiar cleaner fish with parasite marks did not cause them to rub their throats.

They know!
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#8
Zinjanthropos Offline
Read that the wrong way. Have my doubts. Where could they have ever seen their reflection before? A shark's eye? Something else is going on. Do they project a glow that only cleaner fish can see? Would such a glow be unique to an individual fish? How about the parasite? I call BS. Need more info.
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#9
C C Offline
(Feb 16, 2023 02:40 AM)RainbowUnicorn Wrote: what fish have mirrors to look at themselves in ?

(Feb 17, 2023 04:44 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Read that the wrong way. Have my doubts.  Where could they have ever seen their reflection before? A shark's eye? Something else is going on.  Do they project a glow that only cleaner fish can see? Would such a glow be unique to an individual fish? How about the parasite? I call BS. Need more info.

These are apparently more cleaner fish who received exposure to mirrors beforehand (prior to the photographs), as occurred in a past lab experiment that had a press release in 2019, and an update last year where those researchers responded to criticism.



(Feb 7, 2019) Scientists find some fish can ‘recognise themselves’ in mirror
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...-in-mirror

EXCERPT: During the mirror test, the researchers placed a mark on the fish in a location that could only be seen in a mirror reflection. Initially, the fish reacted aggressively and repeatedly tried to bite their reflections. But over the next few days, they stopped biting and started “behaving weirdly” in front of the mirror, swimming upside down, for instance, or doing repeated bursts of acceleration past the mirror.

According to the authors, the fish were “contingency testing” – doing strange things to see whether the reflection did the same as a way of figuring out the function of the mirror. They were also observed attempting to remove the marks by scraping their body on hard surfaces after viewing themselves in the mirror. These activities were not seen when the fish were given marks without a mirror present or when they interacted with marked fish across a clear divider.

- - - - - - - -

(Feb 18, 2022) Scientists persevere to show self-awareness is also for some fish
https://www.osaka-cu.ac.jp/en/news/2021/...-some-fish

SUMMARY: An international team of researchers respond to criticisms on previous work that demonstrated Mirror Self-Recognition (MSR) in the cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus, by 1) successfully repeating the mark test with a larger sample size, 2) showing the MSR behaviour to be the visual result of the mark not a physical response to it, and 3) showing that MSR-trained fish do not show aggression to spatially varied mirror images of themselves. Additionally, they further demonstrate potential self-awareness in L. dimidiatus by showing that they do not demonstrate MSR behaviour when visually presented with the mark on other fish and solidify the importance of ecologically relevant marks presented in previous work by showing MSR behaviour of L. dimidiatus with brown marks, meant to resemble a main food source of the fish, as opposed to no such behaviour in fish with green or blue marks.

RELEASE: Mirror Self-Recognition (MSR) is seen as evidence for self-awareness and passing the mark test, in which animals touch or scrape a mark placed on their body in a location that can only be indirectly viewed in a mirror, is used to determine the capacity of an animal for MSR. Aside from chimpanzees, the evidence for other animals having passed the mark test has been criticized and thus inconclusive. By addressing criticisms placed against their previous work on the cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus, an international team of researchers led by Masanori Kohda from the Graduate School of Science, Osaka City University, has provided further evidence to suggest the fish have the capacity for MSR.

This new experiment was recently published in PLOS Biology.

“Previously, using a brown marking on the throat area of L. dimidiatus, we had shown 3 out of 4 cleaner fish to scrape their throats several times after swimming in front of a mirror” (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000021), states Professor Kohda, “a number on par with similar studies done on other animals like elephants, dolphins, and magpies.” However, one of the criticisms laid against this result was sample size and the need for repeated studies showing positive results. Teaming up with researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour in Germany and the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, this study increased the sample size to 18 cleaner fish, with a 94% positive result of 17 of them demonstrating the same behaviour from the previous study.

But why a brown mark? “After looking at similar studies done on monkeys, pigs, dogs, cats, etc. that clearly tested negative, we wondered if the reason these animals didn’t attend to the mark was because it didn’t represent something in their natural environment they would be concerned about,” says Prof. Kohda. “In our previous study, we used a brown mark as it may look like a small parasite that is a main food source for L. dimidiatus.” A criticism in response to this was the possibility that the physical sensation of the mark, together with seeing the brown mark in the mirror, may trigger behaviour that doesn’t conclusively suggest MSR. To address this, the team tested how the fish would respond to a physical stimulus in their throat by injecting the brown mark 3mm deep (as opposed to 1mm). At such a depth the mark was hardly visible, yet they found that fish with the deeper injection scraped their throat at similar rates, whether a mirror was absent or present. To further solidify the importance of using marks that are ecologically relevant to the animals in MSR studies, the team found that no fish injected with green or blue marks demonstrated the scraping behaviour.

Lastly, some criticisms wondered if L. dimidiatus recognized the mirror image as itself and not another fish. A mirror-trained animal is one that is introduced to a mirror image of itself and goes through 3 steps. First it expresses some kind of aggressive behaviour as it likely perceives the mirror-image as another animal, then it shows unnatural, yet non-aggressive movement, as it confirms the mirror image is not another animal, and last it repeatedly looks at its own body with no aggression. At this point MSR is possible as it can now see the mark and try to scrape it off. “Our previous study demonstrated MSR in L. dimidiatus,” says Prof. Kohda, “however studies with other animals have shown that simply moving a mirror reignites aggressive behaviour suggesting the animal has only learned a spatial contingency, not MSR.” To address this, the team transferred mirror-trained cleaner fish to a tank with a mirror on one side of the tank and then 3 days later to a tank with a mirror on the other side and saw the fish show no aggression towards their mirror image in both tanks.

Also, to ensure the L. dimidiatus that passed the mark test truly are recognizing themselves, they placed mirror-trained fish in adjacent tanks that were separated by transparent glass. After 2-3 days when fish largely reduced their aggressive behaviour towards each other, they were marked the standard way the following night. None of the fish scraped their throat during the 120 mins of exposure to each other the following morning. “This result suggests that a visual ecologically relevant stimulus on another fish is not enough to induce throat scraping on marked subjects,” says Prof. Kohda. “We still have much work to be done, especially quantitatively, to show that fish, as well as other animals have the capacity for MSR, however as a result of this study we reiterate the conclusion of our previous study that either self-awareness in animals or the validity of the mirror test needs to be revised.”
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#10
Zinjanthropos Offline
Thanks for clearing things up CC. I have trouble believing that science is studying mirrored fish image recognition when the test subject’s choice of dining establishments presents a much more interesting field of discovery. Especially if they want to relate/connect it to the development of the human species.

Why not take a shot at trust, a basic human quality? Is the cleaner fish consciously trusting its clients? Do they despise going to work? Do they have feelings for a shark with a piece of diver stuck between its teeth? And more. Probably can’t get funding for that study so we wait until they announce the cleaner fish treads water in front of a mirror and applies makeup.

Edit: Well , what ya know, I found this. Altruism, Reciprocal Altruism. And more….

https://science.thewire.in/external-affa...an-bshary/
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