The Lion's Butt

If you know me, you know I ramble on about the ways psychology carries its debt to the military industrial complex. In an age where STEM seems to mean anything but the humanities, how many common sense notions about perception derive from some DARPA funded study? Once you find these metaphors, biases, and methods you too may struggle to unsee them. Most recently, I was teaching about Wayfinding in the context of cities that changed rapidly under Urban Renewal and we were reading the classic Humanscape: Environments for People edited by Stephen and Rachael Kaplan. There is an essay on “Stalking,” but go ahead and pass that one by and you’ll arrive at Stephen Kaplan’s “Perception of An Uncertain Environment.” Here we read about the trade off between speed and accuracy, as though we are again all hunters. Or in this case, prey. We’re told that a lion may be recognizable by its sharp teeth and mane, but what if you approach from behind? Is that the right question, or is the question why this short essay takes threat detection as a model of environmental experience? Why is a lion’s butt the right illustration if not because of a military mindset? Can we imagine a more peaceful essay about Perception of an Uncertain Environment?