Skip to main content
Journal cover image

Von Uexküll Revisited: Addressing Human Biases in the Study of Animal Perception.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Caves, EM; Nowicki, S; Johnsen, S
Published in: Integrative and comparative biology
December 2019

More than 100 years ago, the biologist Jakob von Uexküll suggested that, because sensory systems are diverse, animals likely inhabit different sensory worlds (umwelten) than we do. Since von Uexküll, work across sensory modalities has confirmed that animals sometimes perceive sensory information that humans cannot, and it is now well-established that one must account for this fact when studying an animal's behavior. We are less adept, however, at recognizing cases in which non-human animals may not detect or perceive stimuli the same way we do, which is our focus here. In particular, we discuss three ways in which our own perception can result in misinformed hypotheses about the function of various stimuli. In particular, we may (1) make untested assumptions about how sensory information is perceived, based on how we perceive or measure it, (2) attribute undue significance to stimuli that we perceive as complex or striking, and (3) assume that animals divide the sensory world in the same way that we as scientists do. We discuss each of these biases and provide examples of cases where animals cannot perceive or are not attending to stimuli in the same way that we do, and how this may lead us to mistaken assumptions. Because what an animal perceives affects its behavior, we argue that these biases are especially important for researchers in sensory ecology, cognition, and animal behavior and communication to consider. We suggest that studying animal umwelten requires integrative approaches that combine knowledge of sensory physiology with behavioral assays.

Duke Scholars

Altmetric Attention Stats
Dimensions Citation Stats

Published In

Integrative and comparative biology

DOI

EISSN

1557-7023

ISSN

1540-7063

Publication Date

December 2019

Volume

59

Issue

6

Start / End Page

1451 / 1462

Related Subject Headings

  • Perception
  • Humans
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Ethology
  • Bias
  • Behavior, Animal
  • Animals
  • 3109 Zoology
  • 3104 Evolutionary biology
  • 3103 Ecology
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Caves, E. M., Nowicki, S., & Johnsen, S. (2019). Von Uexküll Revisited: Addressing Human Biases in the Study of Animal Perception. Integrative and Comparative Biology, 59(6), 1451–1462. https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icz073
Caves, Eleanor M., Stephen Nowicki, and Sönke Johnsen. “Von Uexküll Revisited: Addressing Human Biases in the Study of Animal Perception.Integrative and Comparative Biology 59, no. 6 (December 2019): 1451–62. https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icz073.
Caves EM, Nowicki S, Johnsen S. Von Uexküll Revisited: Addressing Human Biases in the Study of Animal Perception. Integrative and comparative biology. 2019 Dec;59(6):1451–62.
Caves, Eleanor M., et al. “Von Uexküll Revisited: Addressing Human Biases in the Study of Animal Perception.Integrative and Comparative Biology, vol. 59, no. 6, Dec. 2019, pp. 1451–62. Epmc, doi:10.1093/icb/icz073.
Caves EM, Nowicki S, Johnsen S. Von Uexküll Revisited: Addressing Human Biases in the Study of Animal Perception. Integrative and comparative biology. 2019 Dec;59(6):1451–1462.
Journal cover image

Published In

Integrative and comparative biology

DOI

EISSN

1557-7023

ISSN

1540-7063

Publication Date

December 2019

Volume

59

Issue

6

Start / End Page

1451 / 1462

Related Subject Headings

  • Perception
  • Humans
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Ethology
  • Bias
  • Behavior, Animal
  • Animals
  • 3109 Zoology
  • 3104 Evolutionary biology
  • 3103 Ecology