The perception-action cycle was described by the neuroscientist JM Fuster as the circular flow of information that takes place between the organism and its environment in the course of a sensory-guided sequence of behavior towards a goal. When the environment is (asymptotically mean) stationary, the efficiency of the cycle is determined by the ability of the organism to efficiently extract information from the past that is valuable for the organism in the future, on multiple time scales. This observation suggests an intriguing rigorous analogy between the perception action cycle and Shannon's classical model of communication. I will present this analogy and discuss some of its consequences for optimal biological adaptation and performance. More specifically, I will present some recent application of this theoretical framework to auditory perception.