Ah yes, but in typical "men in lab coats" testing environments, what we have is "blindfolded subjects attempting to guess whether persons were staring at them."

This is far removed from "prey detecting whether a predator is staring at them", which would be a much harder test to set up.

For humans, "prey" might mean someone with genuine sexual interest in you, staring at your backside. Try setting that up as a scientific test! Observer effect in full swing, and your results will be disappointing.

Not that I believe or support ideas because they're exotic and exciting. My point here is that it's worth keeping an open mind, precisely because science is entering uncomfortable areas such as consciousness, ego, identity, dreams.