Body Awareness in Goffin's Cockatoos
3 days ago
- Mirror self-recognition (MSR) relies on vision, limiting cross-species comparisons; the body-as-obstacle (BAO) paradigm offers a complementary approach.
- BAO has been tested in mammals (elephants, dogs, great apes) but never in birds until this study.
- 15 Goffin's cockatoos were tested in an avian BAO task where they had to step off a mat to retrieve and pass an object.
- Cockatoos stepped off in 97.8% of test trials, vs 0.7% in unattached control and 39.1% in attached-to-ground control.
- First-session analysis and session consistency confirmed the condition effect was present from the start and stable.
- Pre-test ruled out mat movement or discomfort as explanations for stepping off.
- Results suggest cockatoos recognize their body as a causal obstacle, indicating body awareness despite failing classic MSR.
- Findings support using multimethod, species-adapted approaches to study self-awareness across taxa.