Comparative Psychology of Vision

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Abstract
Light provides a very rich source of information that many animals can use in the guidance and control behavior. Considerable progress has been made in understanding how this comes about through the comparison of visual capacities and visual biology across widely variant species. This chapter summarizes that progress by first considering some basic features of eyes and examining how these features can be exploited to allow vision in different photic environments. Comments are then offered on the means that have been developed for assessing animal vision and on the challenges inherent in inferring visual capacity from anatomy and physiology. Finally, a range of examples are offered as to how animals solve three visual problems: detecting change in the photic environment, resolving spatial structure, and exploiting chromatic cues.