Science chats with a researcher whose team is using “timescapes” to understand how nonhumans experience the world – Do torpid tortoises experience the world whizzing by? Do flitting flies avoid swatters because they see things in slow motion? Scientists have long wondered how animals perceive time, but the phenomenon has been tricky to study.
Enter the “timescape.” In a review published today in Trends in Cognitive Science, researchers propose a new framework to study how animals perceive the temporal world around them. Science spoke with the lead author of the review, Ishan Singhal, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sussex, to learn how timescapes can help us better understand animal consciousness. This interview has been edited for clarity and length…
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