Surrounded by technology and urbanity we may be, but the human brain remains profoundly hard-wired for responding to animals. When people are shown pictures of animals, specific parts of their amygdalas - a structure central to pleasure and pain, fear and reward - react almost instantly.
Put another way, glimpsing a bird at the feeder or a shark on Animal Planet could invoke cognitive tricks inherited from ancestors who walked on four legs in shallow water.
1 comment(s):
Sorry, but I don't believe most humans are wired to notice animals. Whenever I'm out and about in the country I notice wildlife, and yet people around me don't.
"Hey, look at that fox/owl/weasel/deer*"
"What? Where? No, I must have missed it."
On a beach on Great Blasket last year there were upwards of a dozen seals within yards of the shore. It was amazing how many tourists walked right by.
*Whatever
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