Understanding how pictures are seen is important for comparative visual cognition

Abstract

My motivation for co-authoring the target article (Weisman & Spetch, 2010) was two-fold. First, l hoped it would restimulate discussion and consideration of the questions, issues and limitations surrounding the use of pictures as surrogates for real world objects in comparative cognition research (Bovet & Vauclair, 2000; Fagot, 2000). Second, I hoped it would encourage more research aimed at assessing the real world validity of findings from animal research using pictures. The commentaries on our target article reveal a spicy variety of reactions and opinions, which is encouraging for the first goal. The commentators made many excellent points, some which I agree with and some which I question. My coauthor, Ron Weisman has provided a detailed reply to many of the commentaries so I will limit my reply to a few selected points.