Introduction:
There’s a lot of information about how we form and re-inform our self image by using mirrors. Here is an ongoing listing about interacting with mirrors, from self-help techniques to research studies on the neurology of mirroring. Stay tuned, this will be a long list shortly!
1) Exploring Self-Consciousness From Self- and Other-Image Recognition in the Mirror: Concepts and Evaluation
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00719/full
A historical review of the concepts of self-consciousness is presented, highlighting the important role of the body (particularly, body perception but also body action), and the social other in the construction of self-consciousness. More precisely, body perception, especially intermodal sensory perception including kinesthetic perception, is involved in the construction of a sense of self allowing self-other differentiation. Furthermore, the social other, through very early social and emotional interactions, provides meaning to the infant’s perception and contributes to the development of his/her symbolization capacities. This is a necessary condition for body image representation and awareness of a permanent self in a time-space continuum (invariant over time and space). Self-image recognition impairments in the mirror are also discussed regarding a comprehensive developmental theory of self-consciousness. Then, a neuropsychological and neurophysiological approach to self-consciousness reviews the role of complex brain activation/integration pathways and the mirror neuron system in self-consciousness. Finally, this article offers new perspectives on self-consciousness evaluation using a double mirror paradigm to study self- and other- image and body recognition.
2) A scientific American article about the “mirror test” and self awareness
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/kids-and-animals-who-fail-classic-mirror/
3) A Guide to Emotional Self-Awareness from Gareth Michael:
https://www.garethmichael.com/blog/emotional-self-awareness
4) Always interesting to see the deeper meaning of smiles – this is the one expression that really gets changed by being reversed in mirrors\
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/the-psychological-study-of-smiling
5) Here’s Why You Look Better in Mirrors Than You Do in Pictures
https://www.distractify.com/fyi/2018/07/30/29YpYr/why-do-i-look-different-in-pictures
6) Great one about self-awareness
https://hbr.org/2018/01/what-self-awareness-really-is-and-how-to-cultivate-it
3) Animals in mirrors: This Atlantic article goes into some of what we think animals see in mirrors. What will they see in true mirrors?
4) This study showed that a fish showed “the non-reversing mirror image and live opponent drove similar behavioural and neurobiological responses.
Its one of the few studies done to date with non-reversing mirrors, and it matches the idea that we can be more normal with ourselves in True Mirrors than in backwards mirrors.
5) Psychology Today article about the different parts of the brain that light up when we see another’s smile. This is likely the same way that we can smile at ourselves in the True Mirror for the first time…all of the mirror neurons are firing as they normally do
I Feel Your Smile, I Feel Your Pain.
6) Lidiya K‘s blog at LetsReachSuccess: The Mirror Technique
7) Mirror Neurons and Smiling:
How mirror neurons allow us to send other people ‘good vibes’