PeniG
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2003
- Messages
- 2,434
There is also the consideration that animals and humans have different visual priorities. When a human faces a window, we generally focus on the other side of the window, while an animal is more than likely focusing on the surface of the window. It takes a major reorientation of attention for the human to see the moving leaf shadow, or even the nearly-transparent insect, that has attracted a staring cat's attention. When a pet appears to be hunting something invisible, they may be tracking movement without regard to its tangibility, on the same principle as when they chase "the red dot" or a laser pointer. I remember once that my husband was well into a similar game with our cats before he realized that he was part of the game - from his physical angle and human perception, it took him quite awhile to spot that their target was a light reflection off his watch face.
Every sentient creature is bombarded by more information than it can process. In addition to the physical filters which prevent us from receiving certain kinds of information (colors, pitches, nuances of scent, etc.), we all develop psychological filters that sort information in ways that are relevant to our interests. I see far more and different kinds of birds than a non-birdwatcher does, but far fewer recognizable human faces than an extrovert does. When I am walking through a library I scan lots of titles and book covers without registering them, but my inner filters can be trusted to pick out key words and images - the name of a favorite author, an illustration suggestive of something I'm presently researching, and so on. We can consciously change our filters, and sometimes we can adjust them to crudely match the default filters on animals we associate with. Sometimes we can't; either the criteria of the filter are too alien, or the information being filtered can't reach us in the first place.
The same is true in reverse, of course. Human behavior is often as bewildering and mysterious to pets as pet behavior is to humans.
Every sentient creature is bombarded by more information than it can process. In addition to the physical filters which prevent us from receiving certain kinds of information (colors, pitches, nuances of scent, etc.), we all develop psychological filters that sort information in ways that are relevant to our interests. I see far more and different kinds of birds than a non-birdwatcher does, but far fewer recognizable human faces than an extrovert does. When I am walking through a library I scan lots of titles and book covers without registering them, but my inner filters can be trusted to pick out key words and images - the name of a favorite author, an illustration suggestive of something I'm presently researching, and so on. We can consciously change our filters, and sometimes we can adjust them to crudely match the default filters on animals we associate with. Sometimes we can't; either the criteria of the filter are too alien, or the information being filtered can't reach us in the first place.
The same is true in reverse, of course. Human behavior is often as bewildering and mysterious to pets as pet behavior is to humans.