Posted on 12/02/2013 5:07:58 PM PST by Dysart
Cats, according to new research, recognize their owner’s voice. They just can’t be bothered to react to it.
Researchers in Japan arrived at this conclusion after performing experiments with twenty house cats. They played recordings of the cats’ owners’ calling to their pets in whatever cat-talk voice they typically used. They also played recordings of three strangers calling to the cats, using the same words.
To quantify the cats’ reactions, the researchers recorded how often cats moved their head, tail, paws or ears, or whether they meowed or dilated their pupils. While the cats showed a significantly greater response to their owners calling their names than to strangers doing so, they did not bother to get up in either instance, the researchers found.
As the Independent explains, the authors think cats’ dismissive attitudes are a product of their evolutionary history over the past 9,000 years:
As early societies developed agriculture, these cats moved in to prey on the rodents that were attracted to stores of grain. In the words of the paper’s authors, they effectively “domesticated themselves”.
“Historically speaking, cats, unlike dogs, have not been domesticated to obey humans’ orders. Rather, they seem to take the initiative in human–cat interaction.” This is in contrast to the history of dogs and humans, where the former has been bred over thousands of years to respond to orders and commands. Cats, it seems, never needed to learn.
Read more: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/12/cats-recognize-their-owners-voice-but-chose-to-ignore-it/#ixzz2mMyn7FKZ Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
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That’s pretty much the way it works around here. Miss Olivia has a particular square of kitchen tile that she sits on and from which she gives us The Look. This means ‘give me half a can of Friskies Pate Right Now’.
Norman absolutely must have what’s left in my cereal bowl. He prowls the tale and head boops my hand holding the spoon until he gets what he wants.
They sound like CATS, LOL!
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