Self-Recognition in Monkeys and Apes - Case Study Example

SELF-RECOGNITION IN APES AND APES INTRODUCTION Recognition is the matching of an en d input to a stored representation. (Stephen M Kosslyn and Robin S.Rosenberg, 2001). Facing the environmental changes and occurrences around are the manifestations of self-recognition. The degree of getting involved in the process differs from being to being. Animals are generally instinct-lead. Self-concept in animals is confined to their needs and defense alone. Thus their activities in connection with their sense recognition are purely need based; defense being another need for survival. The stimuli around animals are responded in different ways by different animals. Food for a lion is a friend for rabbit. Response from animals to various stimuli makes the difference and thus named self-recognition. In our current study we are to focus on the self-recognition in apes and apes. Apes closely related to humans. Four major kinds of apes are: Chimpanzees, Gibbons, Gorillas and orangutans. Scientists believe that apes and human beings developed from a common ancestor. Apes are usually confused with apes by common man. Monkeys do have tails and are less intelligent compared to apes. Let us now have a close look on the social interactions of apes among themselves. Gibbons form a family group of a male, female and their young ones. Chimpanzees live in groups of twenty to forty members. Often female chimpanzees leave a group and join others. Gorillas live in the lowlands of western and central Africa. Normally large male gorilla leads a group. Orangutans although travel alone, female and young ones travel together. Save a few large male orangutans all the species spend much of their time in trees. (World Book Encyclopedia, pp 496, World Book International, London) Background Behaviors are the impact of self-recognition. Instinctual recognition and emotional recognition are the modes of recognizing the self with the environment. Of the recognition capabilities in animals, cognitive recognition, visual recognition, sound recognition and action recognition are notable. Generally the sense recognitions vary among the animals. Apes also exhibit their recognition capabilities in their own manner. We shall now have general look on the three recognitions. Cognitive recognition . Cognitive recognition usually emerges from visual stimulus. Recognizing mother, the same species, preys and enemies through visual stimulus is generally strong in all animals. In case of apes, this type of recognition is sharp. Kazuo Fujita, 1993 established that pigtail apes were able to discriminate species based not on single features but on the combination of many features of which the head was important. (Kazuo fujita, 1993) J.D.Becker and J. Kruger (1996) have found that apes were able to fix the direction of movement of jerking although confusion prevailed in recognizing correctly the jerking shapes. (Becker J.D., and J. Kruger, 1996).. Recognition of physical contact in apes too was found to be similar to human. Richard M. Restak (2007) cited Harlow isolating apes from their natural mothers immediately after birth and rearing them without contact with their mothers and human substitutes. In his experiments, Harlow substituted the natural mothers with two artificial ‘mother’ surrogates made of wooden frame one covered with terry cloth and the other with wired mesh. The results of experiments made him ascertain that the baby apes preferred terry cloth mothers over the wired mesh mothers from which they were fed through feeding bottles. Built-in-need for softness and warmth of maternal care and selection of next-best substitute by apes is understood from this. Subsequent researches have confirmed the neurological aspects of the above findings. Early loss of maternal contact with the mothers was found to decrease the number of neuronal receptors to a class of steroid hormones involved in stress response. Thus the mother deprived apes were found susceptible to stress related illness throughout their life. (Richard M. Restak, 2007). The impulse to seek comfort from something soft and warm is an innate rather than a learned characteristic of animals. (Stephen M Kosslyn and Robin S.Rosenberg, 2001) Visual recognition Face recognition, a similar task by human, is effectively carried out by apes. The brain of a macaque monkey is found to posses a distinct area, ninety-seven percent cells of which are involved in face recognition task. This area of the monkey, known as middle face patch, recognizes faces exclusively whether the faces are of apes or human. (Anne Petherick, 2006). Tanaka (2000) found that TE area of inferotemporal cortex of monkey brain selectively responded to various moderately complex object-features. Those responding to similar features were found to cluster in a columnar region elongated vertical to the cortical surface. Albeit these cells within a column responded to similar features, they were differing in their selectivity. The experiment of optical imaging in TE suggested that the borders between neighboring columns were not discrete but columns responding to related features overlapped one another. (Tanaka K, 2000). The role of inferior temporal cortex in object recognition during natural behavior was further studied by Ryan EB et al (2007) to land at a conclusion that neural activity in cells selective for preswap target was significantly higher when monkey’s response matched hand association of preswap target. More over, the monkey’s response time was predicted by the magnitude of the presaccadic firing rate on nonswap trials. (Ryan EB Mruczec and David L. Sheinberg, 2007) Action recognition. A remarkable property of audiovisual mirror neurons in apes is that about half of them respond with a similar intensity of discharge whether the action is only heard, only seen or both heard and seen. This findings of Keysers et al, 2003 is of much importance as it suggests that neurons code the action in an abstract way which does not depend on the source of information (sound or object) from which the evidence about the action is taken. Thus this explains well whether apes’ brain can use the mirror neurons to discriminate actions. (C.Keysers et al, 2003). The discovery of audio visual neurons in apes gave rise to the hypothesis that premotor areas of the monkey brain were involved not only in recognition of action but also in action related sound. (Lahav A et al, 2007). Sound recognition. The sound recognition in apes was tested sans the physical recognition, that is, when mother apes and infant apes were separated for weeks. The playback tapes with single ‘isolation peep’ revealed that mothers were capable of identifying their own infants with the acoustic cues even when they were deprived of the physical contact. (D. Symmes and M. Biben, 2005) Hypothesis These four recognition processes explain to some extent the behavioral manifestations in apes centered on self-recognition in relation to their environments. Recognition of sense perceptions in animals is almost similar. Visual perception of species, preys and enemies, sound perception of enemies and physical touch perception of mates are naturally urge-based in all animals. Perception of action in other animals is generally defensive and does not seem to have any impact other than defense. In case of apes alone the visual perception of action prompts the species to copy the action by itself. The action recognition in apes is peculiar resembling human recognition mechanism. Unlike other animals which could carry out certain tasks only on taming, apes are capable of doing some actions simply on visual perception. Mirror neurons responsible for such imitation-functioning in apes were found to be similar to that in human nervous system. (Sandra Blakeslee, 2006) Is self-recognition limited to certain species? Studies so far made have reached the stage that the importance of previous social experience is well defined in great apes especially chimpanzees. Gordon Gallup (2002) suggested a mirror test that may pass light on the self-recognition capabilities of apes. Mark testes were also conducted on these species to arrive at a conclusion that self-recognition ability vary among the species. Of the ape variety almost all engineered a similar approach in their mirror/mark tests except gorillas that usually failed the test. Researchers have ascribed this to the assumption that gorillas considered eye contact an aggressive gesture and normally avoided to looking each other in the face. What are the factors that contribute to such difference in self-recognition capabilities in apes? Experimental Self-recognition being tested through mirror and mark test with chimpanzees varies with several factors like test conditions such as mirror size, position etc.(Karyl B Swartz and Siacan Evans, 1991) and subject variables like age, sex, previous social experience were insufficient to explain the differences. This made the team to suggest that prevalence of individual differences in mirror recognition behavior in chimpanzees could be subjected to further research considering some more factors, which attribute to this phenomenon like development of additional tests. Kim A. Bard et al (2006) on conducting the mirror tests on young chimpanzees and one human infant suggested that mirror self-recognition was based on a specific aspect of mental representation, the cognitive ability to symbolize. The outcomes of these researches prompt us to visualize the theory of mind in animals and the resultant explanations for failure in certain species and varieties among he same species. Previous exposure to mirrors i.e, previous social experiences, attention, motivation aversion to eye contact and poor problem solving skills are a few among the factors that explain why some pass and some do not in the mark and mirror tests. Theory of mind normally allows prediction of what others understand and consequent reaction on them. (Johnson, 2000). Cognitive ability to assess the marks and other parts of the body along with the actions and movements of objects including the reflected image of the self comprises self-recognition in apes. The difference in such cognitive abilities is ascribed to the difference in their ability to recognize the self, that is, a pass or a failure. Let us now focus on the biological side of the issue. Which part of the apes’ brain is involved in self-recognition? The mechanism of hemispheric specialization of the prefrontal cortex for invariant visual-recognition was explained through a study of learning processes involving visual discrimination of stimuli with different visual attributes on two types of rhesus monkeys. Rhesus monkeys whose prefrontal cortex sulcus principalis was removed showed learning process became unstable for discrimination of all stimuli. Transformation of stimuli involving change in shape, size and orientation did not influence correct decisions although time for refusals to action was found to increase. Provisions of spatial information processing and forming of demarcating features were found to play key role in invariant visual-recognition. The vital role of prefrontal cortex sulcus is thus explained. (29 European Conference on Visual Perception) Ferrari PF et al (2006) cited their previous researchers’ argument that a resonance mechanism linked to mirror neurons had already been identified while apes observed lip-smacking and tongue protrusion by others. (Ferrari PF et al, 2006). A nice neurological explanation of the copying actions in apes was already depicted by Rizzolatti G and Fadiga L (1998). Neural basis for understanding the action by others is explained by them in the following manner. They established that the caronical neurons embedded in the arcuate sulcus and mirror neurons located on the cortical convexity were responsible for the imitation actions of apes. While caronical neurons responded to the observation of 3D objects, mirror neurons respond to the observation of hand action done by other animals or individuals. They observed that these two catogary of neurons in the F5 area of monkey brain generate an internal copy of a potential hand action. The caronical neurons described the grasping of the object and the mirror neurons described the action. (Rizzolatti G and Fadiga L, 1998). Subsequent researchers have confirmed that the observation of actions performed with hand, mouth and feet led to the activation of different sectors of Broca’s area and premotor cortex according to the effector involved in the observed action. (Giovanni Buccino et al, 2003)Richard Byrne further suggested in 2005 that new behavioral routines were acquired by observation and named it the ‘learning by copying’. Byrne found that the apes learned their elaborate feeding skills by imitation. (Richard Byrne, 2005). Discovery of mirror neurons: - The role of mirror neurons in executing action oriented activities is an interesting segment in neurophysiology. The study of grasping neurons led to the discovery of mirror neurons. The action understanding in apes had been analyzed by Vittoria Gallese to come to a stage of understanding that intense social interactions among macaque apes disciplined by a well delineated hierarchical organization characterize their ‘understanding’ of actions in other apes or humans. Prediction of consequences of action emitted by other apes or humans became possible through a mirror matching system in apes. F5 mirror neurons and STS (Superior Temporal Sulcus) were found to have different functional roles. STS neurons were coding the semantic, the meaning of the hand-object interactions while F5 mirror neurons engaged in pragmatic coding of the same actions. (Vittorio Gallese, 2007) Significance Manifestation of the self through nature and environment is termed self-recognition. Process of learning is the track to be crossed in the endeavor of such manifestation or self-recognition. This is true in case of animals too. Animals generally exhibit their ego in defense and some natural urges alone. Learning process is common for all animal kingdom involving scores of experiences. Self – recognition is the essence of such learning methods adopted by them. Of the recognition processes in apes, action recognition was found to be different from other animals. In addition to urge based natural recognition mechanisms, apes are found to possess action recognizing capacity in peculiar way comprising the copying or imitating. Neuronal functioning in monkey’s brain is formulated in an evolutionary development. Social interactions among apes explain this. As these interactions in certain class of apes resemble that of humans, we are able to say that man came from apes. CONCLUSION: Animal kingdoms, a great variety of species that form part of our ancestors still quench our thirst for knowledge in so many aspects. Even to know some intricate and fine aspects of human livelihood and human brain are studied only with the help of apes and some rodents only. Existence of every being indicates that every being have its own identity in the world. Establishment of that identity varies among all beings including human. Apes and apes being named as our forefathers exhibit their existence in a way very similar to human as far as their physique is concerned. Apes’ way of life reveals that they resemble to humans too. Excepting the invention of different languages among ourselves man can not boast to be perfectly more intelligent than apes. The brain structures in apes have disclosed that they are similar to humans and their way of facing their environment go with the modality of humans. Recognition-- sense recognition—in apes leads them towards a stage of self-recognition. Of the five sense recognition mechanisms, action recognition in apes and apes are peculiar in the way they are able to imitate humans in just having visual perception. Although man is able to tame several wild animals to do things, such taming could not be globalized in respect of all wild animals. But apes and apes, by virtue of nature endowed with the capability of understanding the actions of others not only in terms of their need but also in terms of the consequences. Self-recognition in apes and apes is thus akin to that in human beings. * * * Reference list— Anne Petherick, 2006, “Brain has ‘Face Place’ for Recognition, Monkey Study Confirms”, National Geographic News dated 03.02.2006 retrieved from http://www.news.nationalgeographic.com/index.html on 22.04.07 Becker J.D and J. 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