How the classic mirror test served as a portal for scientists to explore questions of self-awareness
Since the late eighteenth century, scientists have placed subjectsâhumans, infants, animals, and robotsâin front of mirrors in order to look for signs of self-recognition. Mirrors served as the possible means for answering the question: What makes us human? In The Mirror and the Mind, Katja Guenther traces the history of the mirror self-recognition test, exploring how researchers from a range of disciplinesâpsychoanalysis, psychiatry, developmental and animal psychology, cybernetics, anthropology, and neuroscienceâcame to read the peculiar behaviors elicited by mirrors. Investigating the ways mirrors could lead to both identification and misidentification, Guenther looks at how such experiments ultimately failed to determine human specificity.
The mirror test was thrust into the limelight when Charles Darwin challenged the idea that language sets humans apart. Thereafter the mirror, previously a recurrent if marginal scientific tool, became dominant in attempts to demarcate humans from other animals. But because researchers could not rely on language to determine what their nonspeaking subjects were experiencing, they had to come up with significant innovations, including notation strategies, testing protocols, and the linking of scientific theories across disciplines. From the robotic tortoises of Grey Walter and the mark test of Beulah Amsterdam and Gordon Gallup, to anorexia research and mirror neurons, the mirror test offers a window into the emergence of such fields as biology, psychology, psychiatry, animal studies, cognitive science, and neuroscience.
The Mirror and the Mind offers an intriguing history of experiments in self-awareness and the advancements of the human sciences across more than a century.
eBook - ePub
The Mirror and the Mind
A History of Self-Recognition in the Human Sciences
- 312 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
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Information
Publisher
Princeton University PressYear
2022Print ISBN
9780691237763
9780691237251
eBook ISBN
9780691237268
Table of contents
- Cover
- Series Page
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Introduction: Peripatetic Practices
- Part I. Identifications
- Part II. Misidentifications
- Conclusion: Failing the Test
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Archival Documents
- Index
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Yes, you can access The Mirror and the Mind by Katja Guenther in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Computer Science General. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.