Ferrets May Learn Awareness if Their Own Body Limits

Abstract

"The study of the ability of self-awareness (self-awareness, the ability to perceive one's own body and mental properties separately from objects of the external world) in animals contributes to the study of the specifics of human consciousness. One of the aspects of self-awareness is body-awareness, which is expressed in the ability of an animal to take into account the physical parameters of its body when regulating behavior. We studied the ability of ferrets (Mustela putorius furo) to be aware of the limits of their own bodies. To solve the experimental problem, the animals had to choose holes suitable in size for penetration in the partition that divided the sections of the experimental setup. The shapes and sizes of the holes varied. We have used both small area holes that are suitable for penetration and large areas that are not suitable for penetration. It was found that all 6 animals participating in the experiment were able to choose a hole suitable for penetration from the first trial, despite the fact that it was smaller than the unsuitable one in area. In 18 test trials, ferrets made 105 successful penetrations and 3 unsuccessful attempts. This distribution differs from the uniform one (?2 = 97.25; df = 2; p <0.01). None of the individuals showed a significant reduction or increase in unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the holes This data may indicate that ferrets have knowledge of the boundaries of their bodies and the ability to compare them with the parameters of the penetration hole."