Cross Modality Quotes

“As with cross-modal task transfer in echolocating dolphins, spontaneous cross-modal recognition in weakly electric fish strongly suggests that electrolocated objects are being perceived holistically in three dimensions with a representational format and/or phenomenological quality that is analogous in fundamental ways to vision. Object recognition across ISMs is thus a robustly replicable phenomenon and is indicative of both the common representational formats of ISM percepts and their global access. Further, as von der Emde and colleagues point out, cross-modal recognition is not a quirk of experimental artifice. Rather, it is a crucial adaptive functionality that ensures reliable perception in complex environments in which information flowing in from different senses must be weighted and adjusted in accordance with fluctuating conditions, such as changes in turbidity, lighting conditions, and so forth.”
― Russell Powell, Contingency and Convergence: Toward a Cosmic Biology of Body and Mind