The attempts to get a good picture of a sasquatch by the use of game cameras has been coming up short from the anticipated hopes of field researchers placing them in what looked like promising locations. Of course skeptics are going to put forth arguments to the effect that you can’t get a photo of what isn’t there. This may be true, however for the sake of argument, let’s assume that sasquatch is a real animal and does inhabit North America. Now the question shifts back to why aren’t we getting photos from all these game cameras, not to mention the game cams that deer and bear hunters have out, or the hundreds of other people just playing with them.

The two ideas put forward most often are object recognition and low population density of sasquatch. While low population may play a role to a small degree, it does not explain areas of activity that continue during attempts to photograph, yet a lack of photos. So, for the time being we will just table that whole side of the discussion and concentrate on object recognition.

Object recognition does not mean that the person or animal knows or even understands what the object is; it only means that they know it is out of place. All primates exhibit this ability. Visual object recognition is a key function of the primate brain, as has been shown by a number of studies. Documentation of one such study can be found at http://www.vision.caltech.edu/CNS179/papers/tanaka97.pdf. So if sasquatch is in fact a primate, then it goes without saying that it possesses object recognition similar to that of other primates.

Experience has shown that humans’ ability in object recognition is a varying and learned behavior. While on a root level we do possess the ability, on a conscious level it needs to be trained. I would suggest reading “How Experience Shapes Vision” by Michael J. Tarr at http://www.apa.org/science/psa/jul05_mainartcle.html. At the very least it will give you a basic understanding of how we as humans grasp the world around us.

Computer visual programs may be about as far as you can get from a primate in the woods, yet a paper on the construction of a visual program does help with our understanding of the world so I would also suggest reading http://web.mit.edu/serre/www/publications/serre_etal-CVPR05.pdf.

It is a small step from there to putting some of this information into the context of the sasquatch search. Does sasquatch exhibit levels of recognition? It has been suggested that sasquatch are intimately familiar with their surroundings, and while this may be the case I would doubt that they have a photographic memory of every tree in the forest in their head. While this may on some outside statistic be possible, the act of updating this internal map would be a full time job with all the natural changes that take place in the woods. However, fully integrated senses would have the same effect without the necessity of a photographic memory.

We should draw a line at this point for clarity. As the above-mentioned papers explain, the brain has a very effective way to accumulate data for recognition. Depending on your experience, when you look at the woods your mind recognizes trees as trees, perhaps even the type of tree, approximate age, etc. That deals directly with object recognition. Knowing that John carved his and Beth’s initials in one of them deals with memory. These are two very similar but distinct functions of the brain.