understood that the zebra was in serious trouble.
What is remarkable about this experiment is that very young children,
regardless of culture, learning, or living conditions, understand
fundamental rules of predatory behavior, even when they have never seen
a live lion or zebra and know nothing about life in sub-Saharan Africa.
Barrett believes their innate grasp of these primordial relationships is a
genetic legacy based on millions of years of hard-won experience, and
that this is why young children continue to be fascinated by dinosaurs and
other monstrous creatures. He calls this “Jurassic Park syndrome”; the
implication is that, in ages past, this was information one absolutely had
to take an interest in if one was to survive to breeding age.^10
As we get older, our skill at motive discernment grows increasingly
sophisticated, and several studies have shown that we are adept at
determining an animal’s behavior and intention simply by being shown
spotlit portions of its limbs and joints with everything else blacked out.
This ability is crucial for distinguishing friend from foe and predator
from prey when only fragmentary information is available, as is often the
case in tall grass, dense forest, or at night. Today, this same visual acuity
enables fighter pilots to distinguish between ally and enemy aircraft in a
split second, and it is also what keeps us alive in heavy traffic. But the
full perceptive range of these ancient gifts is most easily appreciated in a
crowded bar as we assess potential mates, no matter what they may be
wearing.
Researchers from the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, wanted to refine this idea and
test whether people pay preferential attention to certain categories of
things like, for example, animals, over others. To determine this, they
showed undergraduates pairs of photographs depicting various scenes in
which the second image varied slightly from the first and included a
single specific change. The students’ only instructions were to indicate
when and if they noticed a change and what it was. There were animate
and inanimate categories so the second image might introduce a pigeon, a
car, or a tree. It quickly became apparent that students were more