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Comment by krick | Hacker News Reader

This also seems very plausible to me. I've seen my cat to be frightened by sudden appearance in the mirror just to relax in about 0.5 s. Clearly not enough time to decide if the creature in the mirror is harmless, but apparently enough to recognize himself. The second time he faces mirror in this location he isn't scared anymore. This isn't at all similar to how he reacts to actual cats.

Also, it isn't the same with all cats I've known. Some seem to be more clueless than others.

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>I've seen my cat to be frightened by sudden appearance in the mirror just to relax in about 0.5 s. Clearly not enough time to decide if the creature in the mirror is harmless..

Why isn't it enough time to decide whether the reflection is harmless? Not my area of expertise, but I'd expect humans to be able to parse a face or a even posture for signs of imminent aggression in that time easily. Many other animals should be able to do the same.

I'd say we are highly optimized for this, since the biggest threat to humans have been other humans for most of history, and quick judgement can literally decide who lives and who dies.

Well, the reaction of a frightened cat isnt, by design, one that appears friendly. They usually jump and get a puffy tail. If the cat observes his reflection jumping and getting a puffy tail, itd make sense for the cat to assume danger, for he just ran into another cat whom got freaked out seeing him.

That is, if the cat doesnt recognize itself rather quickly

True, though if the reaction time / interest level is different from the reaction to a real (non-threatening) cat, it can still tell you something.

(In my experience they're pretty clearly different).

Uh, nope, if I find a body-sized mirror in an unexpected place, I'll probably have a half second of "stranger dang-" before I cool down.

I don't think it needs to realize the cat in the mirror is itself - it just needs to realize that this is another one of those weird human thingies that show things that aren't real.

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