dolphins, for their part, perceive much higher frequencies, often in the ultrasonic range, allowing them to navigate and hunt using echolocation.

Our sense of smell, while relatively effective, is far more limited than that of cer-tain animals. For instance, dogs have a sense of smell about 100,000 times more developed than ours, allowing them to detect chemical compounds at incredibly low concentrations. Moreover, due to their highly developed sense of smell, their associative memory that creates deep links between their senses and attachment feelings, as well as their particular perception of the passage of time, dogs can sense the presence of their owner, even in their absence. The elephant, on the other hand, can locate sources of water and food from several kilometers away. Finally, the shark’s sense of smell is so precise that it can detect the presence of blood in the water at a concentration as low as one part per billion.

Regarding taste, there is also considerable variability between species. For example, rats have about 50% more taste buds than humans, with particular sensitivity to sweet and bitter flavors, which helps them detect potential toxic substances. As for touch, while humans possess a relatively developed sense of touch, notably in terms of skin and muscles, animals such as elephants and dolphins have exceptional sensory capabilities at the skin level, allowing them to detect very slight variations in texture, temperature, and pressure in their environment.

In the end, while our senses allow us to navigate and interact effectively with the world, there is a great diversity in how other species perceive their environment. Each animal species has developed specific sensory abilities, often far beyond what we, as humans, can perceive. It is clear that these physiological biases play a crucial role in our perception of the world.

Perception biases. Now let us focus on the individual or group level. Regardless of our intrinsic sensory capabilities, we can be subject to distorted perceptions of reality, to “illusions”, or, to be more precise, to biases of perception, across all our senses. These biases can even manifest at the species level.

We are well aware of visual illusions, but there are many other types, particularly auditory ones. For example, the McGurk effect illustrates how the interference between hearing one sound and “seeing” another sound, lip-read from a person, can lead to the perception of a third sound, which was never emitted.

There are also olfactory illusions, such as phantosmia, during which one per-ceives a smell that is not present in the environment. As for taste, apart from possible “ghost tastes”, it is often influenced by numerous external factors: the color of food, its texture, its odor, as well as elements such as the level of acidity or bitterness. These factors can profoundly alter our gustatory perception. This is exploited in molecular gastronomy, which seeks to create new textures that induce original taste sensations.

Finally, tactile illusions are no less significant and can be particularly spectacu-lar. One of the most famous examples is the phantom limb, where an amputee still perceives sensations in the missing limb. Another very common example is tactile habituation: when we are subjected to constant tactile stimulation, such as the contact of clothing on the skin, our perception of this stimulation may decrease over time, to the point where we no longer notice it, even though it is still present.

Thus, our sensory experience of the world is neither entirely objective nor com-pletely faithful to reality; it is constantly shaped by perception biases, illusions that reveal its limitations.