Supernormal stimuli have been found for many species, and all such discoveries are evidence against the claim of the reconstruction theory that our perceptual categories estimate the statistical structure of the world; all are evidence for …31. Ramachandran, V.S. (1990). Interactions between motion, depth, color and form: The utilitarian theory of perception, in Vision: Coding and efficiency, ed. C. Blakemore (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).
32. Roberts, M.E. and Gold…
Nikolaas Tinbergen
scientist · 2 mentions across 1 reading
In this course
Tinbergen's ethological work on supernormal stimuli—exaggerated signals that trigger stronger behavioral responses than natural ones—appears in debates about whether perception reconstructs objective reality or operates through species-specific interfaces tuned to exploit environmental regularities. The course readings cite him to argue against the idea that perceptual categories neutrally estimate statistical structure; instead, supernormal stimuli suggest our sensory systems have been shaped by evolution to respond to particular features, a principle that complicates how we think about AI systems trained on human-generated data and their potential misalignment with natural or social environments.
Mentioned in 1 reading
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