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Researchers at Kyoto University in Japan have found that bottlenose dolphins seem to perceive the visual world much like chimpanzees and humans do, even though the mammalian species are adapted for life in vastly different environments. In a Scientific Reports paper published today (January 16), Masaki Tomonaga and his colleagues show that dolphins exhibited similar abilities to both primates in a visual-matching task.
The researchers tested dolphins, chimps, and human volunteers on comparable visual-matching tasks, then analyzed error patterns to determine how each subject perceived visual stimuli. They found that all three species perceived shapes similarly, but with some variation. For example, dolphins and chimps relied more on acute angles for perceptual classifications, whereas humans used curvature. “The reasons for these differences in visual perception ...
