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I read an article in the New York Times from last year about the development of vision in primates. The article was attempting to answer the question: how does the evolution of vision in primates correlate with their survival needs? Primates evolved over the years to perceive clear, colorful details and boundaries of objects in space. They also have depth perception and can register motion. For years scientists have asked why. What aspect of vision do primates find the most useful? For a while there was a theory which said that primates used their visual perception of motion and color and the ability to clearly distinguish objects as a way to find food. Fruits and moving insects were more easily identified. Their hand-eye coordination used to grasp food was fueled by the input-output feedback loop of vision.

Recently studies were conducted which analyzed the brains of primates from varying eras and their results offered new suggestions. They found that areas of the brain that correlated to depth perception, identifying camouflage and forward sight to be more highly developed than those correlating to visually guiding and grasping for food. This suggests that searching for food is not the developing component of vision for survival of primates but the identification of distant and camouflaged objects, such as predators is.

I found this article interesting because it tried to apply an evolutionary purpose to vision and why we see. In class we have been talking a lot about how we see, but less about biologically why it is that we see. Is our vision purely a tool of survival, whether it be for food or to avoid predators? Or are there other intentions that we are unaware of such as a component to vision that is purely for pleasure or balancing or perceiving the time of day?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/opinion/03isbell.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=2753601c32ec5778&ex=1314936000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss