PRIMATES, 34(3): 301-309, July 1993 301 SHORT COMMUNICATION Discrimination Learning of Scratching, but Failure to Obtain Imitation and Self-recognition in a Long-tailed Macaque ROBERT W. MITCHELL Eastern Kentucky University and JAMES R. ANDERSON Universitd Louis Pasteur ABSTRACT. A long-tailed macaque was trained to scratch when a model scratched, but failed to generalize scratching when model scratched new target areas. The results confirm that monkeys can control their rates of scratching, but may not be capable of true imitation. The subject also failed on a test of mirror self-recognition. Imitation and self-recognition appear to be related capacities, which may be absent in monkeys. Key Words: Imitation; Macaque; Mirror; Scratch; Self-recognition. INTRODUCTION The capacity for imitation of others' bodily actions is reasonably viewed as a prerequisite for the development of self-awareness and awareness of another's perspective (BALDWIN, 1894/1903; GUILLAUME, 1926/1971; PIAGET, 1945/1962; MELTZOFF, 1990; MITCHELL, 1990, in press a; HART & FEGLEY, in press). Recent theory (PARKER, 1991; MITCHELL, 1992, in press a) has explicitly tied the recognition of one's own body in a mirror to imitative capacities: mirror-self-recognition is observed in great apes, humans, and perhaps dolphins (GALLUP, 1970, 1985; LEWIS & BROOKS-GUNN, 1979; ANDERSON, 1984a, b, in press; PATTERSON, 1990; PATTERSON • COHN, in press; MARTEN & PSARAKOS, in press), and imitation of another's actions is largely restricted to these species (MITCHELL, 1987; VISALBERGHI& FRAGASZY, 1990; WHITEN & HAM, 1992). Among humans, those who have difficulty with imitation (e.g. some autistic children) also generally fail to mirror-self- recognize (MITCHELL, in press a), and propensities for imitation of others' actions and mirror-self-recognition are not always present in all members of a species (VISALBERGHI & FRAGASZY, 1990; SWARTZ& EVANS, 1991; MITCHELL, in press a). According to one theory, bodily imitation and mirror-self-recognition go together because both are dependent upon kinesthetic-visual matching (MITCHELL, 1992, in press a). With kinesthetic-visual matching, the organism recognizes that the kinesthetic and visual experiences of its own body are identical and thus knows what it looks like when it acts, even when it does not see itself. The organism can also compare its own kinestheti- cally felt actions with its visual experience of actions of others, as in imitation, and with the visually experienced actions of itself, as in mirror-self-recognition. If an organism could