Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses

We humans perceive the world through our senses and assume it is as we observe it. Modern science finds that reality is much more complicated. Our fellow creatures sense things we cannot or do so differently. Jackie Higgins smoothly introduces us to the explorations of numerous scientists who are finding more senses than we are aware of, how different they can be, and expand our world. A fine read for the curious mind which wants to grow more aware of the real world within and around us.

The author uses an engaging and clear writing style to cover a lot of territory. I found some of the simplifications to be overly simplistic, but I am probably not the target audience because I have technical degrees. I think that my grandkids in middle school and perhaps freshman year in high school would feel comfortable with this book, but perhaps left wanting more detail. Recognizing that the general public has about that level of technical understanding I can see why this book has been well received.The author worked hard to not lo lose the reader with technical jargon and succeeds at that task. The author tries to tie topics together in broad strokes, an admirable objective, but sometimes runs into problems with the conclusions in chapters having statements that fail to summarize the material and failing and not address contractions.On balance, this book covers many topics with approachable text as an easy to read introduction. It does not have much depth but it is not intended to have depth.

In Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses, Jackie Higgins smoothly and successfully merges what could have been two popular science books — one on animal senses and one on human perception. Instead of separating the two subjects, here Higgins uses one as a vehicle for exploring the other. More precisely, by examining a dozen animal species and focusing on a single sensory trait they possess, Higgins casts a clarifying light on our own sensory abilities, including those we may not even be aware of.Each chapter focuses on a single creature and sense, as follows• Peacock Mantis Shrimp: color vision• Great Gray Owl: hearing• Star-Nosed Mole: touch• Common Vampire Bat: pleasure/pain• Goliath Catfish: taste• Bloodhound: smell• Giant Peacock of the Night: desire• Cheetah: balance• Trashline Orbweaver Spider: time• Bar-Tailed Godwit (bird): direction• Common Octopus: proprioception (sense of one’s own body)• (An Afterword focuses on the duck-billed platypus)The specific chapters follow an introduction that skims through a brief history of how we’ve viewed senses, noting that while most people think we have only five (taste, touch, sight, sense, smell), scientists will argue for a number more in the 20s or 30s, depending on which scientists you ask. And some, Higgins notes, will ‘argue it is folly to even try counting separate senses, as integration is about integrating information across them all, a fundamentally multisensory experience.”The chapters themselves are concise, lucid, informative, and never fail to fascinate, even as Higgins goes well beyond simply describing the creature’s (and our) act of sensing but delves both into the mechanisms of the sense (which means getting into molecular biology, anatomy, and sometimes genetics, among other branches of science) and often how it arose, developed, and what evolutionary benefits it may be bestowed. While, as mentioned, Higgins mostly uses the animals as the vehicle for such exploration, much as Oliver Sacks once did (and Higgins in fact cites Sacks multiple times), she also brings in people who suffer from extremely rare genetic disorders or who have been the victims of traumatic injuries, using the way their senses were disrupted to illuminate the way a particular sense works. As when, for example, she tells the story of a man who lost his sense of his body and thus could not control his own limbs, though he could move them.Two of the most interesting aspects of the book, for me at least, were Higgins’ chapters on the senses we’re less (or wholly) unaware of, and the ways in which she shows that humans, often contrary to our own beliefs, are actually pretty good at sensory perception, though we typically see ourselves as the “loser” when we compare ourselves to our animal brethren in terms of seeing or smelling.For instance, she points to an experiment that shows that “a [human] rod photoreceptor cell can respond to a single photon and even resolve the statistics of photon numbers in weak flashes of light; that this can trigger a biochemical cascade . . . and, ultimately, this can lead to our perception of a single photon.” Granted, as the lead researcher said, “it’s more like a feeling of seeing something, rather than really seeing it … a feeling at the very threshold of your imagination — a feeling that there could have something, but you aren’t entirely sure;” but it’s still a pretty stunning result that, as Higgins puts it, “we can even detect, albeit vaguely, the individual elementary particles that make up our universe.” In similar veins, Higgins gives us experiments where humans can hear zero decibels (whispers are around 20), be trained to echolocate like bats, respond to a caress that only depresses the skin by five hundredths of a millimeter, and can track a 30-foot “twisting path marked by twine that had been dipped in the essential oil of chocolate” like a dog (in fact, humans outperform a number of animals in our sense of smell, including monkeys, otters, and rats).As for the below-the-radar senses, these include not just the sense of body, which works more below are awareness for the obvious reason that it would be exhausting to have to pay such attention just to be able to stand (see the heartbreaking story referenced above Higgins includes regarding a man who must do just that), but also senses that were never considered part of the human realm: a sense of navigation and direction, a sense of time, and the like. These are relatively recent questions, some still being explored and debated (a raging debate over human pheromones for instance).Sentient conveys everything clearly and concisely, in an engaging fashion, going into just the required amount of depth and detail so that the reader is left with a good understanding of the topic as opposed to being overwhelmed, and is also engaging and interesting enough that many readers will want to further explore the topic. Recommended.

Jackie Higgins is a rarity. She combines good science with good prose. If you liked "The man who mistook his wife for a hat" you will appreciate "Sentient: How animals Illuminate the wonder of our human sense." Jackie brings together some of the latest research in the Neurosciences and uses it to peek into the future of that important field. She does so with good judgement and insight.

Ok, ok. I loved this. I gobbled up all that I learned, and my brain hurt with the thoughtfulness of it all. It turns out many animals have senses above and beyond what we have as humans. Examples are a variety of shrimp who can see colors we cannot, a type of fish that can see in the dark, how the Great Gray Owl can hear, sense of touch illuminated by a mole, a vampire bat’s sense of pleasure and pain, a catfish and the sense of taste, the bloodhound and, you guessed it, sense of smell, and several more.One thing I loved most about this book is that, while it is scientific, it’s entry level so the average non scientific reader will find it accessible. I also loved that it’s a starting point book meaning it gives you a glimpse into many areas of interest where you can dive more deeply and explore more.Overall, Sentient is an entertaining and illuminating read, and I’m excited for the future of this area of animal sentience.I received a gifted copy.

While the topic is very interesting and the science well-researched, I did not at all like the way the book was written. Every other sentence is a quote from someone the author interviewed. It was very distracting to me and read more like a giant newspaper article, which is not what I personally want from a popular science book.

Got this book pre-ordered cause I was so excited about the content...but disappointed after I read it today.The book skims through basic animal behaviors/neuroscience/brain & cognition stuff, if you took some psychology courses in uni then this book is way too basic...It may be a fun read for high schoolers.I also dislike how the book quickly jumps from story to story, I rather read an animal behavior textbook with more details on experiments and pictures. (There is zero picture inside the book).Lastly, most of the concepts can be found in many many documentaries (BBC Earth, national geography...) so making the read less attractive.