Citation

Author Website

http://rhwiley.bio.unc.edu/

Thread

Carolyn A. Ristau, Précis of: "Birds, Bats and Minds: Tales of a Revolutionary Scientist, Donald R. Griffin"

Abstract

As Griffin surmised, communication is the window on cognition, but as shown here, only if it is noisy. This commentary is an invitation to consider the full implications of the evolution of noisy communication. A combination of Information Theory, Signal Detection Theory, and Natural Selection, in a unified theory of the evolution of communication, reveals that noise is inevitable. All organisms are thus decision makers. Perception, thought, freedom of decision, self-awareness, metabolism, and natural selection all share the consequences of signals in noise. A full understanding of each requires attention to the errors of receivers. Griffin’s hunch is correct with one emendation: it is noisy communication that provides the window on cognition.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic License

Author Biography

R. Haven Wiley, Professor Emeritus of Biology, University of North Carolina, studied with Donald Griffin at Harvard University and with him and Peter Marler at The Rockefeller University. He then taught and studied animal communication and social behavior for 40 years at Chapel Hill. His own and his students’ research on noise in communication eventually led to a unified theory of the evolution of communication and perception. Website

DOI

10.51291/2377-7478.1860