[HN Gopher] CatMeows: A Publicly-Available Dataset of Cat Vocali...
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CatMeows: A Publicly-Available Dataset of Cat Vocalizations (2020)
Author : diplodocusaur
Score : 284 points
Date : 2021-06-19 00:16 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (zenodo.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (zenodo.org)
| dirtyid wrote:
| Does a typical speaker capture all the wavelengths that would
| cause recognition? For some reason my cat only responds to cat
| vocalizations avidly from the fancy AV equipment.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Cats can hear up to 64k. Recording at 8k is like bad phone
| quality for a human.
| ctoth wrote:
| This reminds me of some people working on a cat translator[0]
|
| The paper this dataset links to [1] seems to be using statistical
| techniques to compare spectrograms of meows, something that seems
| pretty easy with fastaudio[2].
|
| [0]: https://github.com/FrogBoss74/RealCatTranslator [1]:
| https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/9/8/543 [2]:
| https://github.com/fastaudio/fastaudio
| WalterBright wrote:
| Having a cat, I have worked out a sophisticated translation
| lookup table: cat[] = meow meow meow meow
| meow translation[] = feedme feedme feedme feedme feedme
|
| So far, it is 100% accurate.
| maurits wrote:
| cat translator finally online
|
| cat: I AM THE NIGHT, THE DARKNESS
|
| owner: That can't be right, he is called Mittens.
| phowat wrote:
| In my case here it means either : feed me , pet me or play
| with this toy with me . I have to try these options to know
| what it really means.
| StavrosK wrote:
| I have a cat, but am a dog person. The difference in
| intelligence is stinking. The cat can't communicate
| anything past meowing generically, whereas the dog can
| understand what I'm saying and bark on the one it wants.
|
| When my cat wants something, she'll meow uselessly until we
| chance on what it is. When my dog wants something, she'll
| come to me and touch me with her paw, and I'll say "Food.
| Water. Walk." and she'll bark at the one she wants. It's
| amazing.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Cat IQ depends on the cat. We had an _incredibly stupid_
| cat who liked nice but was dumb as a rock, and would
| mostly sit in the kitchen staring at the far wall and
| looking a bit dreamy. She didn 't really meow at all. Or
| do much of anything else.
|
| We had a couple of high IQ cats who not only knew how to
| communicate they were also super-social, and made it very
| clear to us and to visitors what they did/didn't want.
|
| Now we have a mid-IQ cat who is quite vocal and quite
| good at communicating, but we have to make more of an
| effort than with the previous two.
| techrat wrote:
| While cats mostly do just meow (as much as you can say a
| dog mostly just barks)... my cats definitely do have
| variances to their meow depending on their needs or
| wants.
|
| When we stayed in an RV while the house was being built,
| I had to put my fat boy Percy into the shower stall with
| the doors closed while the dogs ate otherwise he would
| annoy them (with headbutts) into not wanting to eat. He
| developed a habit of going into the stall on his own and
| meowing when he wanted to be fed because we always put
| him into the shower when food would appear for the dogs.
|
| Even in the new house, he jumps into the tub and meows
| the same way when he wants to be fed.
|
| He meows a different way when he sits at the gate or at
| the top of the stairs, as if for permission to interact.
| If you don't acknowledge him, he won't hop the babygate
| or come down the stairs. If you do respond, he trills a
| happy chirp and trots along.
|
| He developed a whine meow where he basically is saying "I
| need attention now." Most recently he did it because a
| towel fell into his water bowl and he couldn't drink out
| of it.
|
| That counts as 'food, water, walk' to me.
|
| Oskar also has various different behaviors associated
| with meow types for things that get him the response that
| he wants. But both cats are Sphynxes and they are
| _unusually talky_... I doubt I would have gotten as much
| from other breeds. But they do clearly communicate what
| they want from you once they find a way to get that to
| come across.
| lejohnq wrote:
| What I experienced with my cats is they don't seem to
| care about learning you, rather they expect you to learn
| them and their signals.
|
| They have the intelligence to communicate but it's
| typically on their terms.
|
| Also here's an example of a cat learning to speak with
| language buttons:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pvgfI9P377U
| barrkel wrote:
| I don't doubt that dogs are smarter than cats, but dogs
| are far more social and are motivated to learn by that
| social connection. Cats can also be trained, but it's a
| lot more work to keep them motivated.
|
| Cats do communicate a lot, but it's physical and
| sometimes subtle; eye contact, body rubbing, head
| butting, contextual waiting, and so on. Our cats very
| rarely meow unless they haven't been noticed, or, with
| the Norwegian, when she wants attention and she has a toy
| in her mouth she wants to play with - she loves playing
| fetch with toy mice.
| StavrosK wrote:
| Maybe my cat is just weird, she has brain damage:
|
| https://www.stavros.io/posts/blind-cat-eyes/
| monkeybutton wrote:
| There's also: Let me outside and let me inside. My mistake
| was putting the food bowl beside the back door so I have to
| guess which one it is, food or out.
| patrakov wrote:
| Well, with my cat in the childhood the translation was
| easy. Two meows (probably learned from "mama" = mom)
| meant that the cat wants attention from my mother. A
| single long meow meant that the cat wants to walk outside
| (well, this was specifically trained by meowing at the
| cat at appropriate times). A short meow meant either food
| or play, depending on the room where the cat is in.
| anoncake wrote:
| > (well, this was specifically trained by meowing at the
| cat at appropriate times).
|
| You meowed at your cat when you wanted to walk outside?
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| That's a fun image!
|
| I'm not the parent commentator but I understood them to
| do it before they let the cat out. I'm pretty sure that's
| pretty normal for training behavior, until you step up
| the training and stop letting the cat out unless it meows
| correctly
| mschuster91 wrote:
| You're lacking a "plz gib scritches" and "me wants out" in
| the translation table.
| WalterBright wrote:
| If the cat wants a scritch-scratch, she'll bat me with her
| paw.
|
| The eagles and coyotes (I live in the middle of the city,
| go figure) would make short work of the cat if outside. The
| coyotes often hang out on the front lawn, and recently left
| a nice "you suck, Walter" message as a pile of poo by the
| front door. Had a bobcat wander by not too long ago. The
| coyotes don't approach me, but I'm not so sure about
| bobcats.
|
| A couple weeks ago a gigantic eagle cruised by me at eye
| level, about 10 feet away. No way I'm going to tangle with
| that monster, and it's easily big enough to cart off the
| cat. The other cats in the neighborhood are indoor cats,
| too.
|
| Once there was a juvenile coyote cut in half in the front
| yard. I figured it was that eagle.
|
| Another time a ginormous owl decided to sit on the porch
| railing, staring at me, for quite a while. Yeah, it could
| easily have taken the cat apart.
| sloshnmosh wrote:
| I need an app that can tell me when my cat has had enough
| pettings to alert me before he flips over and latches on to
| my arm and kicks layers of my skin off.
|
| That app would make a FORTUNE!
| tomaszs wrote:
| I was pretty successful with using the rule of three. You
| pet a cat three times. No less, no more. Cat won't be
| irritated by prolonged petting, but also not fully
| satisfied with only three pets. My cat never scratched me
| when I used this rule.
| StavrosK wrote:
| Do you guys not trim their nails? No scratching when they
| aren't sharp.
| barrkel wrote:
| If they ever end up outside, they're defenceless.
| StavrosK wrote:
| Ah yeah, true, we don't let out cat outside, or if we're
| going to, we don't trim her nails for a few weeks
| beforehand.
| jnurmine wrote:
| Disclaimer: I'm no Jackson Galaxy. But pets, both cats and
| dogs, communicate with their owners in their own way.
|
| Cats are a lot about body language.
|
| For your question I just look at the ears and the tail.
| When the ears go lower and/or tail starts wagging, I stop.
| Or when my cat moves a small distance away, sits there and
| stares/smiles? I stop.
|
| I've noticed that what I interpret as a desire for petting
| is often some other business. Maybe the litterbox is full.
| Or maybe it's playtime (thinks the cat). Or something else
| is amiss.
|
| It maybe sounds stupid but when I can't read my cat, I
| usually just ask. I say repeatedly "show me", "where",
| "show me", "where" etc. and slowly walk behind my cat and
| let it lead.
|
| For example, if the balcony door is open and cold air is
| coming in (my cat doesn't like cold), my cat sometimes
| takes me to first to the fridge and then leads me to the
| balcony door. When the litterbox is full my cat takes me
| near it and sits there facing it, within visual/smelling
| range, but never very close to it. And so on, one has to
| connect the dots from the context, and ask the question
| "what is there at this location that is meaningful to the
| cat".
|
| Of course sometimes I can't fix what my cat wants. Like
| when the Sun has moved away and the sleeping place in the
| chair has fallen under a shadow. So my cat tries a few
| times, repeating the same behaviour, but eventually gives
| up, either gets bored or realizes I can't or won't help.
| ficklepickle wrote:
| I also follow my cat while asking questions! It's almost
| always food, water, catnip or litter.
|
| Regarding the water: he won't drink chlorinated water. In
| his previous home, he developed urinary stones because
| they didn't figure this out. Cue a BS prescription diet
| sold by "vets". Nope, he just needed fresh, non-
| chlorinated water.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| My cat gives very clear signals. Tail starts moving
| angrily, cat heats up, purring stop.
| inopinatus wrote:
| There is also
|
| meow, meaning "leave me alone I am trying to sleep", and
|
| meow, meaning "behold human, I have deigned to bless you with
| a gift of this deceased rodent".
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| I wish they were dead; I spent an hour looking for one that
| was brought back in...
| intricatedetail wrote:
| "My human, you look miserable, I have never seen you hunt,
| here cook yourself this delicious Mus musculus molossinus I
| got from the rear of fine Japanese restaurant"
| sovande wrote:
| Cats & dogs mostly communicate with body language so this is of
| limited use. A translator model would need video for training. I
| can't wait for the day when I can point my iPhone camera at a dog
| and learn what it tries to communicate. In the meantime we can
| learn the fascinating language of dogs, http://en.turid-
| rugaas.no/calming-signals---the-art-of-survi...
| ismaildonmez wrote:
| No idea why you are being downvoted but cats do not talk to
| each other either. It's known that their meow evolved from the
| baby cries, to sound needy and annoying enough that you pay
| attention.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Cats don't meow, but they do hiss and yowl at each other.
| They also nose/face bump. And make specific noises in heat.
|
| When our current cat was in heat before being spayed I
| recorded the sound on my phone and played it back to her. She
| looked _very_ confused. Maybe I should try it on other cats
| to see what happens.
|
| She's also fascinated by one particular jingly wind chime
| ring tone and will follow it around until she gets bored.
| tdy721 wrote:
| Hissing cat? They will hiss at one another...
|
| Animals do not talk. My family tried to sit me down as a kid
| and explain this to me. "The dog does not hear english"
|
| It's wrong; they talk. Body language speaks.
|
| Cat language? Nah, that's a bit silly.
| derefr wrote:
| Reminds me of this cat, who has been trained to express
| themselves via button-presses:
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGMTesZlKa0Lokb7ZNqOJXQ
| TwoBit wrote:
| I'm not convinced.
| vector_spaces wrote:
| Her person is a vet, and she acknowledges in various
| places[1] that it's unclear whether Billi pushes the buttons
| to form meaningful sentences, or simply because she knows
| something happens when she presses them (like she'll get some
| sort of attention).
|
| I can imagine there are some buttons where she might
| associate the button press with a specific outcome (like, she
| knows that when she pushes her "food" button, there's a good
| chance of her getting fed). But whether Billi understands
| that her getting fed is because she's intentionally
| communicating with her person is unclear.
|
| Either way, I think the channel is mostly for fun, and my
| partner and I have appreciated it a lot during the pandemic.
| Billi had a scary health crisis a couple of weeks ago but
| looks to be mostly recovered now, thankfully
|
| [1] One of those places is this FAQ page
| https://www.billispeaks.com/faq
| supercheetah wrote:
| Unconvinced of what? Her human doesn't make any claims of any
| kind except that it's just something fun for them to do. Are
| you unconvinced that they're having fun with it?
| detaro wrote:
| Presumably of the claim made in the comment they replied
| to?
| derefr wrote:
| The video where the cat begs (through the buttons) to go
| outside in the rain, takes one step outside, comes back in,
| and immediately complains (through the buttons) about the
| rain, is pretty convincing to me.
|
| Also interesting is its use of the "angry" button in response
| to not getting its way, _or_ having something irritating it,
| _or_ when it 's clearly frustrated by not having its needs
| understood.
| StavrosK wrote:
| Maybe there's more in videos I didn't watch, but I watched
| 5-6 videos and the cat seems to be pressing buttons
| randomly. It doesn't seem to correspond to anything it
| does.
| supercheetah wrote:
| I don't think it's completely random, not some of the
| time, anyway. That's not to say that it's deliberate,
| though, either. There's a number of videos in which
| she'll barely touch or just hover her paw over a button,
| pause for a while, take it away, and then proceed to push
| a different button.
| derefr wrote:
| Watch the older videos, not the newer ones.
|
| AFIACT, the videos are a kind of progress log for
| demonstrating the cat's learning in different concepts.
| The older videos focused on [demonstration of] learning
| of more "core" concepts ("food", "water", "pets",
| "outside", etc.); but since these concepts are now fully
| "taught", the owner seems to feel no more need to film
| the cat communicating these simpler core messages, except
| when they form an interesting sequence or larger idea.
|
| Instead, the newer videos focus on learning of more
| fringe concepts -- ideas that "come up" less often -- and
| so progress is slower in these.
|
| (Note that, watching the videos chronologically, the
| number of buttons the cat has available grows quite a bit
| over time. I think the owner thinks that the cat now
| understands the _general concept_ of associating things-
| to-be-communicated with presses of word-buttons, and so
| feels that they can now feed them new concepts faster.)
| pkdpic_y9k wrote:
| This project made my day :3
| aaron695 wrote:
| The classic homebrew version -
| http://www.brewery.org/cm3/CatsMeow3.html
|
| Somewhat interesting we could get more collated homebrew recipes
| in 1997 than real cats meows in 2021
| oblib wrote:
| I do kinda want to download those so I can screw with our cats.
| ecommerceguy wrote:
| nah try this instead.
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=videos+for+cats...
| snek_case wrote:
| That may be harder to automate with a Raspberry Pi
| ganzuul wrote:
| The comment sections on those videos are really quite lovely.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Some birds have regional dialects. Do cats from different parts
| of the world speak different languages?
| 867-5309 wrote:
| Texan cats greet with "meowdy"
| sixdimensional wrote:
| Somebody needs to tell the guy who made this YouTube video about
| this: Alugalug cat x the Kiffness https://youtu.be/S61ENc51Z1Q
| bofh23 wrote:
| Here's the original that's being remixed:
|
| I Don't Wanna Be Touched - Meredith Bull FULL SONG OUT NOW
| https://youtu.be/H3Y-A4Ahkto
|
| Channel: Meredith Bull
|
| Published on May 2, 2021
| interfixus wrote:
| Just played a sample of the samples for a congregation of cats
| residing here.
|
| I got four ignores and one stare of bored contempt.
| DaveExeter wrote:
| They work! At least the "F.." ones do.
|
| A bit of clicking and before long I had one cat on my lap and one
| atop the desk inspecting the speakers.
| IndySun wrote:
| No meow, I came to get a moody silence and unblinking stare
| translated, alas...
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| This cat is not in the dataset:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7x_lWJNnNg
| fctorial wrote:
| Yes it is.
| chaps wrote:
| (edit: apparently I'm just bad at websites)
|
| What's with the signup requirement to download a dataset like
| this?
| grp000 wrote:
| Didn't get any on my end. Using Firefox in the US.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Ditto. Almost. iOS, Firefox, US, no signup
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| No signup with Chrome, People's Republic of Oceania.
| jerrysievert wrote:
| none on safari/macos.
| bingu wrote:
| Great and fun idea, but the resolution of these files is
| incredibly low.
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| You're not kidding, they're 8 kHz i.e. ""phone resolution""...
|
| Interesting, this seems to be related to the Bluetooth
| microphone that they used:
|
| "Thus, we adopted a very small and lightweight microphone
| placed under the cat's throat through a collar"
|
| The microphone is described in their paper [0]: "The signal is
| transmitted via Bluetooth [...] at a sampling frequency of 8
| kHz."
|
| Also: "As a consequence, the actual range of frequencies we
| could rely on is 0-4 kHz. We expected that the fundamental
| frequency emitted by cats falls within the range, whereas some
| higher-frequency harmonics were likely to be cut"
|
| [0] https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/9/8/543/htm
| Tabular-Iceberg wrote:
| Sounds like they were over-complicating things. Simply
| pointing a shotgun mic at the cat from a distance would have
| done the trick.
|
| I don't blame them, though, we do it all the time in software
| development.
| azalemeth wrote:
| Most outdoor shotgun mics I've seen have a nice furry wind
| screen affectionately known (in en-gb at least) as a "dead
| rat". Most indoor shotgun mics I've seen also have a double
| life as outdoor shotgun mics, and therefore come inside a
| 'dead rat'.
|
| My cat will investigate anything pointed at him, and I'm
| pretty sure would love to see how dead the dead rat
| _really_ is...
|
| Rather than taking aim at the sampling rate, if anything
| I'd be more interested in being sure that they'd sampled up
| to the end of the frequency spectrum that cats can actually
| hear -- for birds at least the >30kHz part is important.
| nexuist wrote:
| I'm very confused as to why. According to Finder these have an
| 8kHz sample rate? How did they find a mic that bad?
|
| Or is it intentional? Is there some scientific usefulness that
| would make these clips easier for a machine to analyze? I
| really don't know if there would be, since a higher resolution
| clip could just be sampled again if you really wanted something
| lower.
|
| It is very unfortunate, but I'm grateful that someone performed
| this experiment as ethically as they could think of and made
| the data available for all to use.
| tyingq wrote:
| Lol. It's a no-name bluetooth earbud from WalMart that's $16.
|
| https://www.walmart.com/ip/QCY-Mini2-Wireless-Business-
| Headp...
| adfm wrote:
| Black Mirror thought: Given the popularity of cats and that
| things like buzz pollination exist, it would be interesting to
| see if these sounds affect human behavior in some meaningful way.
| orangecat wrote:
| https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2009/07/cat-purrs-evoke-baby...
| adfm wrote:
| Exactly! What else?
| stewbrew wrote:
| The file naming pattern is surprising: C_NNNNN_BB_SS_OOOOO_RXX
|
| Why would you place context before, but breed, sex, and owner
| after the cat id?
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2021-06-19 23:02 UTC)