[_nalply]

The mirror test works like this: you stealthily put a mark on the face or head of the being and then present the mirror. If the being then tries to reach the mark it is a strong clue of self-recognition.

In the excerpt the exact way of the sniff test is not described. I didn't read the paper, hoping for a summary here on HN. I thought maybey they controlled for confounding effects, for example by presenting other familiar smells, including the smell of self. The modified smell showing a higher level of interest compared to other smells would be a clue of self-recognition.

Anyway the approach shows clearly a bias of the mirror test. You could say the mirror test was discriminating the dogs.

This might be a leap, but I felt reminded of the hearing bias Deaf people experience every day. The majority of people assume that hearing and communicating via the audio channel is the way to go, and so I experience hurdles like needing to phone for identification for services.

I sympathise with the dogs.

[theshadowknows]

Is this like the experiment where they put a dot on a bird and then showed the bird itself in a mirror, and then the bird tried to clean the dot off itself?