I think that after a lifetime of looking in the mirror, your brain has long ago stopped applying “is-a-person” to the image.† Like, I still “feel alone” if there’s a mirror in my room.
I can’t immediately find examples of adults (or articulate kids) seeing themselves in the mirror for the first time—for example, you can see your reflection in still water which is very common in the world. (There’s a famous-ish video from Papua New Guinea of people seeing a mirror for the first time but it’s apparently at least somewhat fake and maybe very fake.)
You can however buy a non-left-right-reversing mirror made from a pair of front-reflecting mirrors at a precise 90° angle. So your reflection doesn’t quite look like a normal mirror, nor does it move like a normal mirror (you move left and the reflection moves right). And people indeed seem to have strong feelings in reaction to seeing their reflection in this kind of mirror the first time—see e.g. NYT, collection of testimonials. I don’t think that really proves anything specific, but I guess it’s vaguely compatible with the kind of story I was imagining.
† How does that work? I.e., how do we learn from experience to not trigger “is-a-person” (much or at all) upon seeing ourselves in a mirror? Umm, one thing might be, certain sensory inputs cause startle / orienting reactions along with physiological arousal, but those reactions can be suppressed if we predict (“expect”) the inputs in complete detail, e.g. you can’t startle yourself by moving your arm in front of your eyes, and likewise a marionette being controlled by someone else offstage seems less “alive” than a marionette that you’re controlling with your own hand. Maybe the presence of unpredicted motion / sound is an especially important heuristic behind the is-a-person ground truth. If so, after enough time with a mirror you develop an excellent predictive model of what the image will do, such that there’s nothing left to trigger any amount of startle / orienting / salience. Also, people with schizophrenia can spend hours staring at themselves in the mirror, apparently, which would (in my view) be an exception that proves the rule, related to their cortex’s failure to build an excellent predictive model of what their mirror image will do under different circumstances, so the startle and physiological arousal never goes away, and it remains mesmerizing.
I don’t think photos trigger the “is-a-person” detector appreciably—at least not for us western adults who are very used to them. Again, there’s a lack of self-generated motion and physiological arousal. I guess videos do trigger it to some extent, and people do indeed seem to enjoy watching people interact on TV for hours straight, which suggests it’s triggering something inherently motivating. And people also react socially to TV / movie characters, e.g. wanting revenge on the bad guy. As for seeing myself on video, I don’t do that often enough to have any opinion about that. … when I do, my strong feelings of embarrassment overwhelm everything else. :-P
Show people videos of themselves from a while back, so they don’t remember the details and can’t predict well and see if that triggers admiration.
Let people imagine that the appreciation goes to their younger self, or a character they are playing, or to a person/memory, say their grandparents, they have “in their hearts”.
Interesting thought, thanks!!
I think that after a lifetime of looking in the mirror, your brain has long ago stopped applying “is-a-person” to the image.† Like, I still “feel alone” if there’s a mirror in my room.
I can’t immediately find examples of adults (or articulate kids) seeing themselves in the mirror for the first time—for example, you can see your reflection in still water which is very common in the world. (There’s a famous-ish video from Papua New Guinea of people seeing a mirror for the first time but it’s apparently at least somewhat fake and maybe very fake.)
You can however buy a non-left-right-reversing mirror made from a pair of front-reflecting mirrors at a precise 90° angle. So your reflection doesn’t quite look like a normal mirror, nor does it move like a normal mirror (you move left and the reflection moves right). And people indeed seem to have strong feelings in reaction to seeing their reflection in this kind of mirror the first time—see e.g. NYT, collection of testimonials. I don’t think that really proves anything specific, but I guess it’s vaguely compatible with the kind of story I was imagining.
† How does that work? I.e., how do we learn from experience to not trigger “is-a-person” (much or at all) upon seeing ourselves in a mirror? Umm, one thing might be, certain sensory inputs cause startle / orienting reactions along with physiological arousal, but those reactions can be suppressed if we predict (“expect”) the inputs in complete detail, e.g. you can’t startle yourself by moving your arm in front of your eyes, and likewise a marionette being controlled by someone else offstage seems less “alive” than a marionette that you’re controlling with your own hand. Maybe the presence of unpredicted motion / sound is an especially important heuristic behind the is-a-person ground truth. If so, after enough time with a mirror you develop an excellent predictive model of what the image will do, such that there’s nothing left to trigger any amount of startle / orienting / salience. Also, people with schizophrenia can spend hours staring at themselves in the mirror, apparently, which would (in my view) be an exception that proves the rule, related to their cortex’s failure to build an excellent predictive model of what their mirror image will do under different circumstances, so the startle and physiological arousal never goes away, and it remains mesmerizing.
I don’t think photos trigger the “is-a-person” detector appreciably—at least not for us western adults who are very used to them. Again, there’s a lack of self-generated motion and physiological arousal. I guess videos do trigger it to some extent, and people do indeed seem to enjoy watching people interact on TV for hours straight, which suggests it’s triggering something inherently motivating. And people also react socially to TV / movie characters, e.g. wanting revenge on the bad guy. As for seeing myself on video, I don’t do that often enough to have any opinion about that. … when I do, my strong feelings of embarrassment overwhelm everything else. :-P
Some more ideas:
Show people videos of themselves from a while back, so they don’t remember the details and can’t predict well and see if that triggers admiration.
Let people imagine that the appreciation goes to their younger self, or a character they are playing, or to a person/memory, say their grandparents, they have “in their hearts”.
Something something identical twins.