Gorillas show as much self-awareness as chimpanzees, new study finds

Chimpanzees have been known to be aware of themselves, having shown this ability in different scientific tests. But now, their cousins, gorillas have been found to the ability too.

A research team, led by Utrecht University biologist Jorg Massen, performed a study using tests different from the standard ‘mirror test’ to come to this conclusion.

In the mirror test, animals get a mark on their body that they can only see when looking in a mirror. If the animal tries to touch or remove the mark on their own body, it shows they recognise themselves, which suggests self-awareness.

However, this test cannot be used for all animals since some species may not rely much on vision and may dislike looking at faces. They might thus fail the mirror test even if they are self-aware.

Massen and his team decided on a different test to determine whether gorillas, who do not make much eye contact, are aware of themselves.

“In this test, chimpanzees and gorillas had to open a box lid to get food. Sometimes, the researchers placed the box on a pole, forcing the animal to sit on the lid itself. In this situation, the animals had to realize that their own body was blocking the lid,” statement by the University noted.

The scientists found that both chimpanzees and gorillas performed equally well on this test and were aware that their body was the obstacle in the way of getting the food.

The team believes that different tests and methods should be used when studying animal self-awareness.

“Thanks to this body awareness test, we now know more about the inner life of gorillas, which may be richer than we previously thought, or at least had scientific evidence for,” the statement quoted Massen.

Another advantage of using various methods to study self-awareness would be finding out more about how it evolved in humans and non-humans.

There is, for instance, no common consensus on whether self-awareness in different ape groups is the same or different.

 “It’s possible that apes have a similar type of self-awareness, but it could also be quite different. By combining different tests, we can better understand these differences.”

He added that the exercise conducted by the team also showed that animals believed to be ‘less intelligent’ may actually have more complex thoughts than believed.

Comparing the Performances of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in Two Self‐Awareness Tasks has been published in the American Journal of Primatology.