Imagine for a moment that you have never seen a photo of yourself , ever. Or anyone who is a human.

Your whole life you grew up in a white room with other animals like you in cages.

---

The problem with using 2d images in animal research is that it is assumed that animals understand what photos are.

But they probably don’t. Or at least they don’t rely on them or interpret them like we do. From a young age we watch tv. Read picture books. Look at photos albums. Even draw each other.

Animals don’t have those experiences. Especially lab animals. They don’t even have the experience of seeing billboards or posters.

This is a huge problem in forming any type of conclusions from animal research like this.

It’s not impossible. But their perception is not like a humans.

They don’t see a photograph of a bird and recognize it’s their kind they are looking at.

They probably just think it’s a screen or paper. Or something like that.

Because 2d is unnatural. They likely have limited ability to understand it’s a representation.

Even humans can struggle with this (I can explain this more if someone asks).

How do birds identify each other?

Sounds they make ? Location? Movements ?

I’m not sure exactly but I doubt it’s solely visual face recognition.

Even dogs use smell more than visual face recognition.