Reflections In The Mirror And Your Perceptions Of Them

So I recently read an interesting article about how people perceive of themselves in the mirror, how it affects human behavior and people's misconceptions of their reflection in the mirror. It's quite fascinating and worth reading.

Did you know that the only other nonhuman species that have the ability to recognize themselves in the mirror are apes, chimps, gorillas, orangutans, bonobos, dolphins and Asian elephants? This confirms my theory on the intelligence of elephants. But also interesting to note is that people tend to see themselves in the mirror as more attractive than they really are according to research.

Maybe I should leave a warning for anyone who reads this article because you might feel worse afterwards. Not only do you discover that you may be self-delusional, perhaps ugly, but also bigger than you thought. That's a triple whammy. If you believe that your reflection is the same size as you or close (which I did), then you're wrong. It's actually half the size. How can this be? I know what you're thinking. In fact I still have a hard time wrapping my head around this one.

The important point is that no matter how close or far we are from the looking glass, the mirror is always halfway between our physical selves and our projected selves in the virtual world inside the mirror, and so the captured image in the mirror is half our true size.  —New York Times

So in essence, you are bigger than you appear in the mirror. You can test this theory out by tracing your face in the mirror after taking a shower and you'll see that it's half the size of your actual face. What's even more interesting is that no matter how far you step away from the mirror, your reflected face remains the same size in the outline that you've just traced. Doesn't this information just turn your world upside down? It sure boggles my mind.