The Sense of Hearing in Fishes and Amphibians

Abstract

For humans, the act of hearing results in a set of experiences that can lead to knowledge, but may or may not lead to overt behaviors. Ordinary experience suggests that most humans share these experiences and acquired knowledge, and thus share a sense of hearing. However, hearing in other species can be inferred only from behaviors that may or may not reveal experience and knowledge. If we are careful not to anthropomorphize, as many of us have been taught, our view of hearing in nonhuman animals tends to be tied to the behaviors most easily observed and understood, such as predator avoidance, prey identification, courtship, and vocal social interaction. Since experience and knowledge are impossible to observe directly, we may tend to deny their existence in other species, particularly those with which we do not readily identify, and those that are most distantly related to us. This makes it difficult for us to evaluate and understand the sense of hearing in other species in terms other than naturally occurring, sound-related behaviors. We may be led to believe, for example, that hearing in a given species or class can be fully explained as an adaptation for initiating and directing behaviors that occur in close temporal association with those sound sources that seem to require a prompt response, that is, those thought to be of “biological significance.” In this view, we are probably fated to regard the sense of hearing in these species as simplified or impoverished compared with our own.