Do Animals Recognize Pictures as Representations of 3D Objects?

Understanding how Pictures are Seen is Important for Comparative Cognition.

“…If they perceive them in the independence mode and do not perceive them as 3D objects, then it tells us about how they categorize pictures on the basis of 2D information. The processes under investigation, and the brain regions underlying these processes may be different in each of these cases as nicely illustrated by the research discussed by Jitsumori (2010; for additional examples, see Behrmann & Kimchi, 2003;Gerlach, 2009;Vuilleumier, Henson, Driver, & Dolan, 2002). Knowing whether animals see the 3D nature of objects in pictures, and whether they see correspondence between the information presented in pictures and information seen in the real world is important for knowing what recognition and categorization processes are being investigated.…”

“…I agree that a framework is needed and that these distinctions are important. I suggest that the framework be expanded to also include the distinction noted by Jitsumori (2010) between two dimensional (2D) and three dimensional (3D) processing of pictorial information. This distinction may be orthogonal to the picture processing modes proposed by Fagot and Parron and it might be particularly important when viewing pictures of unfamiliar objects.…”

2D or not 2D? An fMRI study of how dogs visually process objects

“…This means that there is little evidence for 2D to 3D transfer happening naturalistically in a nonhuman species. Nor does recognition between pictures mean that the animal has abstract knowledge of objects, that they have formed a mental representation, or that they equate pictures and real world objects (Jitsumori 2010;Weisman and Spetch 2010).…”

The Commentaries: Some are Visual Illusions.

“…But this should not be taken to mean they are always correct in their opinions. I highly recommend two of the commentaries (see Fagot & Parron, 2010;Jitsumori, 2010): these provide valuable perspectives on cognitive and perceptual acts that are important to categorization (see Spetch, 2010).…”