The Mirror and the Mind: A History of Self-Recognition in the Human Sciences

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 subjects—humans, infants, animals, and robots—in 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...