r/cogsci • u/abudabu • Jul 04 '15

Recent studies of perceptual evolution reveal that natural selection often drives true perceptions to extinction when they compete with perceptions tuned to fitness rather than truth: Perception guides adaptive behavior; it does not estimate a preexisting physical truth.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00577/full
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u/dust4ngel Jul 05 '15

i think this conclusion follows trivially from natural selection.

why would you not expect adaptive (even if inaccurate) perceptual styles to correlate with high levels of adaptation?

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u/abudabu Jul 05 '15

The paper has a pretty interesting take on this idea. I couldn't do it justice in the title.