Abstract
Echolocation is an active mode of perception. Rather than passively waiting for information to arrive at its sense organs, an echolocating animal emits probing signals and listens for important information supplied by the resulting echoes. A comparably active process is the electric orientation that has independently evolved in several groups of fish. They also broadcast informative energy and gather important information by sensing alterations in the electric fields in which they find themselves. What we might call “active perception” of this sort requires that the brain must both generate the appropriate type of probing signal, which often differs according to the animal’s situation, and then selectively process the raw afferent input from its receptors to obtain the information needed at the moment. This amounts to a sort of dialog between the animal and its environment. Furthermore such active probing for important information suggests spontaneous control by the animal of its own behavior, rather than a set of fixed and automatic responses to external stimulation.
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© 1988 Plenum Press, New York
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Griffin, D.R. (1988). Cognitive Aspects of Echolocation. In: Nachtigall, P.E., Moore, P.W.B. (eds) Animal Sonar. NATO ASI Science, vol 156. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-7493-0_73
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-7493-0_73
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