[HN Gopher] Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their d...
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Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives
Author : michaelwm
Score : 297 points
Date : 2022-05-16 12:35 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| aasasd wrote:
| Okay, but:
|
| > _The other 19 were household cats (mean number living together:
| 6.37)_
|
| This means the number of cats, right? Since it's contrasted to
| the cafe cats. So these are basically three families with six or
| seven cats each. The question being: how was it easier to find
| three such families than a bunch of families with three cats?
| What kind of place is that? I mean, sure it's Japan but still.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I am both surprised and not surprised by this.
|
| It does kinda make sense, I have 2 cats (from the same litter and
| have been together their entire lives. 14 yo now). They each
| clearly respond to their name and not their brothers name. Or at
| least respond differently, but I have noticed they look up
| sometimes if I call one and not the other (but won't run up to
| me). I have long though it was them responding to the "pet voice"
| that we all seem to use. But if this was the case that explains
| it better.
| phkahler wrote:
| My can knows the names of all family members and can sometimes
| respond appropriately to "where's mom, go find mom". This is of
| course only if she wants something and came to me for it.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I have definitely noticed that. The cat I had growing up we
| had a close bond. He stayed with my parents though when I
| moved out. Any time I was coming to visit my parents would
| mention my name and he would perk up. I don't think it is
| tied to anything I gave him because I wasn't really taking
| care of him, I was rarely the one that fed him. He just slept
| on my bed and we spent a lot of time together.
|
| So there has to be some understanding there of... something.
| I am curious what they internalize it as.
|
| On the flip side I have to wonder. I live alone. My cats have
| very rarely actually heard my name. I would be very surprised
| if they had any concept of what my name was. But if they
| don't, do they think something different. It is interesting.
| baersandbowlszs wrote:
| bombcar wrote:
| I wonder if they pick it up by what draws your attention -
| so they may assume your name is _texting sound_ or _phone
| ring_ if that 's all they ever see you react directly to.
| nerdjon wrote:
| huh I didn't think about that. I think we can fairly
| safely assume that them knowing their name is not an
| understanding of language and is just a recognition of a
| sound. At least based on any research that has been able
| to be done.
|
| So that would make sense in a way. And does lead to
| some... funny thoughts on what they may think my name is.
| fy20 wrote:
| Isn't that all names are anyway? Of course some people
| have names that mean other things, like say River, but
| you don't need to understand any language to know your
| name.
| nerdjon wrote:
| True, I think more. As a human even if I hear a name in
| another language I still fundamentally understand that it
| is language.
|
| Where I have to wonder if for a cat, I could train them
| to have a sound I play on their phone to be their name
| for all they care (kinda going back to them possibly
| thinking a ringtone could be my name). It's still just a
| sound that they are responding to not a word.
|
| Maybe like you said though, the difference doesn't
| matter. Maybe even as humans while we understand that a
| name is language it is still something else entirely? I
| don't know, that is a realm of cognitive study I know
| nothing about. But it is fascinating.
| Archelaos wrote:
| > As a human even if I hear a name in another language I
| still fundamentally understand that it is language.
|
| Reminds me of the classic Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry
| sketch "Your name, sir?":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNoS2BU6bbQ
| personlurking wrote:
| The other day on Reddit [1] there was a video of farm animals
| reacting to their names, but I think it's just responding to
| the "pet voice", or rather to their food provider vocalizing in
| their direction.
|
| 1 -
| https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/uq5yjo/animal...
| kaba0 wrote:
| I think this is true for some of the pets (e.g. many birds
| are quite dumb), but pigs are one of the most intelligent
| mammals, and cows are not dumb either.
| lobocinza wrote:
| There's a sound to which my two cats always promptly respond, the
| sound of me putting food on their bowls. And it doesn't matter
| how far they are, they hear and come in a hurry.
| anotherevan wrote:
| Small digression, but we recently got a dog. Acclimation with our
| two cats has been a long process. One cat is fine with him, the
| other spends most of his time in our daughter's room (which has a
| child-gate on the door to keep the dog out).
|
| The speed at which the dog figured out the cats names was
| incredible. You say the friendly cat's name and he would look up
| with mild interest. When he's fast asleep you could say the shy
| cat's name and he would bounce up going, "Where? Where? Where?"
| [deleted]
| jonahbenton wrote:
| Would be interested in studies- in cats and others- that attempt
| to differentiate the processing that occurs in response to human
| utterance, as "words" as we understand them are an abstraction
| that elide many subtle aspects of communication. Pitch, tone,
| vocalization duration and speed, mouth position, etc. So many
| signals there, some of which may be relevant for cats, some not.
|
| Am sure cats are able to distinguish bird types by their voices,
| and other prey as well, to a much more sophisticated degree than
| we (our ears) can. Calling those vocalizations "words" almost
| certainly wrong.
| sunjester wrote:
| Are learning sounds the same as learning specific names?
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Cats have friend cats? I'm surprised. This seems like the
| exception rather than the rule. Seems to me like most cats prefer
| a life without other cats around... with human caretakers and all
| the comforts they provide... kept all to themselves.
|
| In my almost-50 years I think I've only met "cats with cat
| friends" a handful of times. Even when we had a pair of sibling
| cats that "liked" each other, when one of them died the other
| actually seemed "happier" after, which is kind of sad and dark.
| cm2012 wrote:
| Here's a picture of all our cats snuggling, 6/7 are best buds
| with one loner. And the longer still follows around the other
| cats just doesn't do the puppy pile thing.
|
| https://ibb.co/c2TgWSK
|
| https://ibb.co/pfnYjSW
|
| https://ibb.co/9W5jCVh
|
| https://ibb.co/gJbKTkC
| lukas099 wrote:
| Cats are weird. My mom's cat fights will all the neighbor cats
| except one, whom she just started hanging out with one day. I
| suppose it's possible they are long-lost siblings or something.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I mean, I'm being downvoted, whatever, but this is what I
| mean. Their social model is entirely different than ours. Or
| dogs. There are other cats they learn to tolerate, or even
| cooperate with. But it's not clear that it's "friendly?"
|
| I know such friend relationships can exist with them, I just
| rarely have seen it.
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| A lot of people get one cat and they get used to being
| alone. People who get more than one cat generally get them
| from the same litter.
|
| But cats are social animals and will absolutely bond with
| each other. Even cats not from the same litter will bond
| with other cats. Usually it takes a careful and patient
| introduction, which people don't realize. All they'll do is
| put the two cats in the same room, observe them fight, and
| come to the conclusion that their cat just wants to be
| alone. But that probably isn't the case at all.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Like many other animal (including human) behaviors, cats
| bond the easiest when young. Littermates, obviously, but
| unrelated cats as well. Second easiest is to bond an adult
| cat with a kitten. Introducing two adult cats to each
| other? It can take time and skill (doing it gradually is
| the key!), and depending on their individual personalities,
| they _may_ become best friends, or only scarcely learn to
| tolerate each other.
| devmor wrote:
| In nature, cats form colonies where they take communal care of
| the young, old and infirm. One of the core behaviors of cats is
| hunting and providing for colony members who are too weak to do
| so.
|
| Cats being "solitary" animals is largely a misunderstanding of
| cat behavior towards humans due to cat affection being
| expressed differently than dog affection.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I have had cats nearly my entire life. I love dogs but I am a
| cat person. All of the cats in my life have been loving
| social pets.
|
| I hate when the idea that cats can't bond, isn't loving, all
| of the stereotypes of cats are thrown around. Because they
| are just wrong.
|
| I do think a fair amount of it is not knowing how to properly
| socialize a kitten. But even a socialized cat will never be
| as affectionate as a dog. Or at least not the way a dog shows
| it.
|
| But I have 2 cats, they will sometimes sleep in different
| rooms and sometimes cuddle up basically on top of each other.
| They almost every night will sleep in my bed or at the very
| least will sleep on the cat tree next to me.
|
| I have noticed that when I have had to take one of my cats
| for an extended stay at the vet the other is noticeably...
| different. I don't want to assign an emotion since their
| emotions are different. But he is not himself. This often
| starts when I put one cat in a carrier.
|
| They seem to know when I am in a mood and really need that
| affection.
|
| But I also acknowledge that a cat isn't for everyone. Some
| people need that constant unquestionable affection that a dog
| gives you. Cats are more subtle.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| The thing is, I like both dogs and cats and I really like
| our cat. But I've only ever had failures in situations
| where I tried to introduce additional cats into a solitary
| cat situation. Which is sad, because I'd actually kind of
| like to have a second cat here. The only time we had any
| luck with two cats was when there were two from the same
| litter.
|
| I know some people accomplish this, but it honestly seems
| like the exception rather than the rule.
|
| (EDIT: I should mention that our cat came from a shelter
| where she lived with a pile of other kittens. But her
| response to other cats now is... GTFO here)
| X0Refraction wrote:
| It takes a long time to introduce a new cat, we have 3
| indoor cats all introduced one at a time. It took around
| a month for both the second and third cat to be
| completely accepted.
|
| The approach we took was to keep the new cat in a
| separate room for the first few days to allow them to
| begin to get used to the new scent. We would then swap
| blankets to give them further time to get used to each
| other's scents. Then we'd open the door and allow them to
| interact under supervision for short periods and then we
| gradually increased the time they could interact each
| day.
|
| I'm not sure this would work if you had outdoor cats. We
| didn't actually intend to get the third cat, but we ended
| up taking him in as our friend's original cat refused to
| acclimate to the point that he was spending all but 20
| mins a day outside of the house and so they needed a good
| home for their new cat.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > But I've only ever had failures in situations where I
| tried to introduce additional cats into a solitary cat
| situation.
|
| Cat colonies, as I understand, tend to follow the the
| eighth rule of Fight Club, which can make introductions
| seem unsuccessful even when they may not be.
| technothrasher wrote:
| > In nature, cats form colonies where they take communal care
| of the young, old and infirm.
|
| Yup. I spent several years working with feral cat colonies
| throughout central Massachusetts in a TNR program, and they
| are quite similar in their social structure to lions, less
| like other more solitary cat species. The colonies at their
| core tend to be groups of related females, with adult males
| roaming between a few different groups of females. Neutered
| males tend to act more like females and stay with a
| particular colony. Given the artificial food supply the
| "crazy cat ladies" provide, you will see colonies of
| unrelated individuals, but if there are multiple food sources
| readily available the colonies will tend to fracture by
| maternal line.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Many species are more social and cooperative that people
| think.
|
| I wonder if seeing nature as more ferocious, competitive and
| individualistic that it really is comes from psychological
| projection.
| nonstickcoating wrote:
| I recommend Kropotkin's book about Mutual Aid regarding
| this topic. Disregarding his obvious political affiliation
| he is one of the first critics of the then-emerging social-
| darwinist readings of animal behaviour with regards to
| Evolution and therefore deals with this topic quite
| extensively.
|
| He was a zoologist apart from all the other topics he had
| time to deal in because of his noble heritage. Here is the
| wikipedia article [0] since I do not know how HN regards
| links to e.g. libgen.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| _" hunting and providing for colony members who are too weak
| to do so."_
|
| Is that why my cat dropped a dead vole on our doorstep last
| week? Is she sad that we're deprived of such essentials? :-)
| jdougan wrote:
| "You poor incompetent kitten."
| bmj wrote:
| It's been interesting to see local shelters realize this, and
| create colony rooms for cats that have been properly
| socialized. It keeps the cats out of smaller cages, and
| likely simplifies the care and feeding of the cats in the
| colony.
|
| It's also a great way to pick a few cats to bring home. My
| local shelter will just let you into the room, and you can
| hang out and decide which ones (and how many) you'll bring
| home.
| devmor wrote:
| My local area also has several outdoor colonies that are
| managed (Neutered, health checkups, etc) because they
| realized that leaving fixed feral cats in place and taking
| care of them prevents other feral cats from taking their
| place and breeding further.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| This is how we "chose" our cat. My wife and daughter sat
| down in the room of kittens and picked the one that came
| over and started snuggling and playing. It chose us.
|
| She's such a mellow "no f's given" cat. Lives in a house
| with two border collies and doesn't take any crap from them
| and lies around totally chill all day long. I suspect this
| might be due to her socialization at the animal shelter.
| gquiniou wrote:
| feral cats tend to form colonies but wild cats are solitary,
| like the european wildcat:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wildcat
| amyjess wrote:
| Housecats are descended from the African wildcat, not the
| European one. The African wildcat forms colonies just like
| housecats.
|
| Much of the myth that cats are naturally solitary creatures
| comes from people studying the behaviors of the European
| wildcat and attributing them to housecats, which is wrong
| because that's not what housecats are descended from.
| jart wrote:
| I guess it depends on the cat. Mine is like that. She was a
| stray. I found her in my backyard one day. I took her in. I
| groomed her. I enriched her with toys, food, love, and all the
| luxuries a modern cat could want. So naturally she goes on the
| prowl each night marking territory making sure none of the
| other stray cats in the neighborhood get adopted too.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Unfortunately my cat thinks his name is "Cat" which leads to some
| obvious confusion :-D
| pmarreck wrote:
| With cats you have to learn nonverbal communication.
|
| The slow blink while looking into their eyes means "it's cool,
| we're cool"
|
| I taught our cats to recognize a double-tap on the butt as "get
| up, I gotta get up"
|
| gotta read their body language... and yeah, sometimes it DOES say
| "I'm not currently interested, no offense"... but the thing to
| know is, they also read YOUR body language. They might not
| understand too many words, but intonation matters, posture
| matters, movement matters
|
| random cat trivia: They can't taste sweet tastes at all because a
| crucial gene for it got knocked out by a mutation a long time ago
| 4oo4 wrote:
| I can definitely attest to this, I have two brother cats, and
| usually calling one of their names gets the other's attention to,
| as if to say "oh I see how it is, you invite him and not me".
|
| I'm also really happy this is empirically validated, its's so
| easy to notice things like this and wonder if you're crazy.
| Flankk wrote:
| Scent is the primary sensory input of a cat, not sight. They
| would be sniffing the screen and the experimenter's hands. I
| think this is the main reason cats fail the mirror test, not due
| to lack of intelligence. Cats eyes evolved for optimal visibility
| in the dark. To a cat, a backlit screen probably looks like sun
| baby.
| News-Dog wrote:
| _> Scent is the primary sensory input of a cat, not sight._
|
| Cat Senses : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_senses
| zdw wrote:
| I wonder if this is the first time a cat cafe has meaningfully
| contributed to scientific discourse.
| CaptArmchair wrote:
| I'll one up you one. F.D.C Willard was an accomplished
| published physicist.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._D._C._Willard
| BayAreaEscapee wrote:
| Apropos Far Side cartoon comparing what cats hear versus what
| dogs hear.
|
| https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6d/36/fa/6d36fa7cc9d762952a62...
| sparsely wrote:
| Scanning the paper the effect seems surprisingly weak (and has
| p=0.045!) and weirdly dependent on family size (it looks as
| thought he difference only exists in larger families). While the
| results seem believable I'm not convinced by the results as
| presented.
| fleddr wrote:
| Our cat responds to Enya.
|
| When I'm working from my desk at home, she often crash lands in
| my lap and then rolls over, all four paws fully stretched as the
| ultimate invitation for a belly rub. This blocks my arms from
| doing work, but she doesn't care.
|
| Next, I turn on Enya, the exact same playlist every single time.
| The moment the music starts she starts cycling her front paws
| with her eyes closed, as if riding an invisible bicycle upside
| down.
|
| I need to fully enclose her with both arms to not drop her and I
| love the arrogance in making that my problem, not hers.
|
| I don't know why it's Enya. It could be that it was playing the
| first time this happened, creating a positive memory association.
| Or maybe she just likes the sounds. In any case, no paw cycling
| without Enya. When I pause the song she immediately stops, opens
| her eyes and stares at me in digust, which is cat for: put it
| back on, idiot.
| idk1 wrote:
| I have two cats, one is quite clever and responds to her name,
| dinner, hop up (for it's ok if you want to sit on my lap) and a
| few other things. I can ask her to get one of her toys too if she
| wants the play. She also very rarely meows.
|
| The other cat is not so bright, if you ever say anything to him
| directly he'll only meow back and come over for a pat, that's it.
| It's just a back and forth screaming match if you talk to him.
| The chopsyest cat I've ever met. Just shouts at everyone and
| everything without purpose.
|
| I think what I'm trying to say is, cats have a range of
| intelligence and some of them are quite good at learning names.
| zebraflask wrote:
| Some are smarter than others, but I think, in terms of animal
| behavior or ecology, cats are basically carnivorous rabbits.
|
| That's not to say anyone who has had a trainable cat doesn't
| like them - mine have their moments - but I think it's
| worthwhile to consider that.
| msrenee wrote:
| In what way do you see a similarity to rabbits? I think of
| them as being pretty different, with cats being less social
| and more likely to take risks.
| platz wrote:
| rabbits are just prey animals and that shows in their
| behavior and attitude, whereas cats do a lot of predation
| themselves.
| widforss wrote:
| Some rabbits (or rather hares) are pretty hardcore.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Backcountry/comments/ul61y6/snow_r
| a...
| Sharlin wrote:
| However, cats are far from the top of the food chain
| themselves, which is reflected in a lot of their behaviors.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| House cats and big cats don't behave very differently.
|
| https://lithub.com/house-cats-and-wild-cats-arent-
| actually-t...
| Sharlin wrote:
| Uh, that article is not about house cats vs big cats. The
| still-extant ancestral species of the domestic cat, _F.
| lybica_ , is a small wildcat, as were its ancestors, and
| as such a predator but not an apex predator. _Big_ cats,
| which typically _are_ apex predators in their respective
| ecosystems, are a wholly separate branch of the felid
| family.
| bawolff wrote:
| > The other cat is not so bright, if you ever say anything to
| him directly he'll only meow back and come over for a pat,
| that's it. It's just a back and forth screaming match if you
| talk to him.
|
| More pats for less work? Sounds like the smarter one to me.
| hanniabu wrote:
| Yup, one wants to play and the other wants pets
| cm2012 wrote:
| I have 7 cats now and have had had 15 cats in my life. My whole
| extended family has always had lots of cats.
|
| Two things stick out at me:
|
| 1) Cats really do respond to being talked to and interacted
| with. Cats that are talked to often get more responsive and
| communicative.
|
| 2) There is huge genetic IQ gaps, lol. Some cats are so smart
| they blow your mind, others are mouth breathers. The normal
| distribution is real.
| neuronic wrote:
| Not just IQ, they have full blown personalities that you
| could probably write Shakespeare dramas about.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| I believe those go hand in hand. The smarter the animal
| usually the more personality they have.
| otikik wrote:
| Or Brodaway Musicals.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| This. Not limited to cats either. I've noticed the same in
| dogs and even some cows.
|
| Same rules apply to humans as well. Interaction early on
| develops personality and intelligence varies genetically by a
| wide margin.
| ensan wrote:
| Intelligence is not well-defined even for humans, and we
| have little understanding of what goes on in an animal's
| "mind", yet people like you use terms like IQ for cats like
| they're established facts. For all we know, it could be
| that some animals/cats just don't "care" as much about
| interacting with humans. Just like some humans do.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| I just meant general intelligence over all varies among
| animals. I'm not stating facts, I'm stating my
| observations.
|
| Personally, it's pretty easy over time to tell the
| difference between apathy and intelligence when you spend
| a lot of time observing interactions.
|
| "People like you" should check your tone btw.
| ensan wrote:
| "There is huge genetic IQ gaps, lol. Some cats are so smart
| they blow your mind, others are mouth breathers. The normal
| distribution is real."
|
| I'm very curious about how well someone with a "lot of
| experience in digital advertising" is positioned to define
| "genetic IQ gaps", "smart", etc. as it applies to cats &
| others. Perhaps instead of throwing these terms around like
| they're candy, you should submit your findings to an
| scientific journal (and get rejected :) ).
| jeremyjh wrote:
| This might be the worst post I've ever seen on HN.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| You seem to be really offended by this statement, you even
| went to his profile to find something to attack him?
|
| GP isn't trying to write a paper, he's stating an
| observation based on his experience with the animals he's
| had.
|
| Feel free to dispute the above statements with research or
| anecdotes, but solely insulting people and getting angry
| just reflects poorly on you.
|
| I can only assume you are one of those stupid cats seeing
| how you handled yourself in this thread :)
| rvieira wrote:
| Totally anecdotal evidence, but I have two cats and I give them
| "wet" food once a day. If one of them is far from the food bowls
| I say his name and he immediately comes running. If none is near
| me, both come running as soon as I call the first name (from
| different parts of the house). So, non-scientific, but I always
| assumed they could recognise each other's name.
| canjobear wrote:
| The effect size is about what I'd expect from an experiment
| involving cats and attention.
| salgernon wrote:
| There is a phone app, I think it was called "MeowTalk" that
| purported to machine learn cats vocalizations.
|
| With two of our younger (4yo sibling tabby) cats it seemed to
| "translate" their infrequent meows as "I love you" "I want to
| play", so kind of, yea, probably, not impressive.
|
| But for our third cat, (an elderly female cross somewhere between
| Maine coon, silver tabby and sofa, a 22 pound ball of complaints)
| the app suggestions were often along the lines of "I don't feel
| well", "I'm in pain". She does have arthritis (and is under vet
| care) so that response from the app was seemingly reasonable.
| herodotus wrote:
| I have tried to train my two cats with just these words:
|
| 1. "Let's go" - morning meal
|
| 2. "Upstairs" - I am going to bed
|
| 3. "Dinner" (plus clink bowls together) - evening meal
|
| 4. "Lie Down"
|
| and their names.
|
| Emerald, who prefers being upstairs, definitely responds to
| "Upstairs": she charges upstairs when I say it. Jade remains
| enigmatic and skeptical: that seems to be her nature. But if she
| is in the mood for a tummy rub, she will respond to "Lie Down".
|
| For me, the great charm of cats is that it is impossible to tell
| the difference between "No, I don't understand you." and "I
| understand you perfectly well, but I plan to ignore you
| completely until I feel like responding".
| crmd wrote:
| >the great charm of cats is that it is impossible to tell the
| difference between "No, I don't understand you." and "I
| understand you perfectly well, but I plan to ignore you
| completely until I feel like responding"
|
| It's totally the same thing with retired racer greyhounds.
| Gentle, stoic, sleep 20 hours a day, and literally zero
| eagerness to please. They're the most catlike of dog breeds.
| Crosseye_Jack wrote:
| > Jade remains enigmatic and skeptical: that seems to be her
| nature.
|
| Its been shown in the past (not got the links to hand, and cba
| to google right now, but I'm sure they wont be hard to find)
| that cats know their name, its just often they don't give a
| shit when you call them. Which pretty much any cat servant will
| understand. Wouldn't be surprised that also applies to other
| words/commands.
|
| EDIT: My own cat knows her name, but will ignore me unless she
| wants attension, sleep or bird watching is far too important to
| go and see what I want.
|
| EDIT2: Fucking Typos!!!
| godelski wrote:
| That's weird, my cat will come no matter what name I call her
| as long as I use the same intonations. I'm not convinced she
| knows her name but rather that she knows pitches. Similarly
| my cat won't do tricks without the hand gestures despite me
| always using the same commands. Maybe my cat is just dumb or
| stubborn, or both. I have seen her run head first into a wall
| before.
| dasil003 wrote:
| The last part reminded me of this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H25ve3qts4
| godelski wrote:
| I forgot about that video, made me laugh. Thanks. But
| also, pretty accurate description. Maybe that's why she
| doesn't play chase as much anymore.
| forgetfulness wrote:
| My cat ignores made up names every time (barely
| acknowledging that I'm speaking to him by turning his ear
| around), and will, probably 2/3s of the time, come when
| called.
|
| The others he just ignores me.
| sandgiant wrote:
| Sounds just like my 2yo homo sapiens.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Cats destroy the assumption that animals should do what we
| tell them to, because that's how it works.
|
| Of course they have agency and their own goals. It's
| fascinating that humans are surprised and sometimes baffled
| by this.
| manachar wrote:
| Humans are regularly surprised to discover that the
| preponderance of evidence strongly suggests the universe
| was not created exclusively for themselves.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Is solipsism wrong, or is it just me?
| happimess wrote:
| My cat and I have one firm English phrase: "3...2...1". I say
| that whenever I want him to make up his mind, and at the end I
| always close the door, pull the sweater from under him, or
| whatever. He definitely knows what it means, and knows I mean
| it.
|
| > between "No, I don't understand you." and "I understand you
| perfectly well, but [nothing in my nature compels me to care]".
|
| This is where he and I are for lots of other stuff, and I also
| love him for it.
| thekid314 wrote:
| That is brilliant
| poisonarena wrote:
| I feel skeptical, I think cats and also most dog breeds
| understand only pitches that sound excited, because that means
| walk or tummy rub or food, but the actual said words could be
| anything, every time
| colechristensen wrote:
| Tone is just as much a part of language and there's a good
| chance when teaching language you ended up teaching the tone
| pattern better than the phonemes. It'sa much better pattern
| March until you have a large vocabulary.
| dghughes wrote:
| Cats are incredibly good at knowing the time if it's the same
| time they probably already know and are thinking "Whatever food
| giver make those thumbs dance".
|
| Mine gets treats at 9pm and she knows almost exactly when it's
| 9pm maybe a 1 minute deviation. This is without an external
| cues. She sits there waiting for me if I forget.
| [deleted]
| toss1 wrote:
| Long and close observation of cats leads me to the inescapable
| conclusion that the latter is almost always the case. The
| number of times they understand some obscure thing _exactly_
| when I have no expectation that they 'll get it at all, and
| their ability to selectively ignore the things I know they
| already understand, plus their ability to ask for complex
| things (where often I'm the dummy in the conversation) makes it
| a pretty inescapable conclusion. . .
| nescioquid wrote:
| > ...their ability to ask for complex things (where often I'm
| the dummy in the conversation)...
|
| I love the way you put that.
|
| Whenever my office door opens and the cat walks in, she's
| either there for a visit or to collect me, in which case she
| waits by the door to lead me to her dish, her toys, or
| whatever she has in mind. Beyond communicating with humans,
| cats are pretty good at training them, too.
| vmception wrote:
| A lot of times they respond or acknowledge as well, just not
| with their eyes
|
| They wont look at you because its not their primary way of
| "seeing" or spatializing the world or their etiquette
|
| Their ears might briefly move in your direction, their tail
| might flick in one of their frustrating ways, they might not
| move a muscle (which is a conscious response for them as
| well)
| nisegami wrote:
| We thought that our cat didn't respond to her name until we
| noticed she always flicked her tail when we said it. It
| really blew my mind.
| leeoniya wrote:
| yep, my previous cat responded with his tail every time.
| we let him roam outside every day and he would always
| come home when we whistled or called his name. also
| walked with us like a dog off a leash.
|
| our current cats are less responsive, maybe cause there's
| two of them, so they have more cat-like comm.
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| The tell tail cat.
| TheBigSalad wrote:
| tbf I ignore my cats too.
| andrepd wrote:
| > For me, the great charm of cats is that it is impossible to
| tell the difference between "No, I don't understand you." and
| "I understand you perfectly well, but I plan to ignore you
| completely until I feel like responding".
|
| Incidentally, this is why I dislike cats so much and prefer
| dogs :)
| spicybright wrote:
| There's a very funny gag in the credits of the movie Inside
| Out by pixar about cats vs dogs.
|
| https://youtu.be/6DZVnX8bEAs?t=68
|
| (If you've never seen the movie, it's worth a watch!)
| carimura wrote:
| just don't get a Pyrenees. maybe this whole time he's just
| been a huge cat.
| gattilorenz wrote:
| My dachshund is the same. Affectionate as a dog, stubborn
| as a cat
| zdragnar wrote:
| I was going to comment that my dog frequently pretends to
| not understand me, but he's part Pyrenees... I hadn't
| realized that was a trait of the breed!
| oogetyboogety wrote:
| Hmm my dog acts like a cat or i suck since i definitely cant
| tell between "No, I don't understand you." and "I understand
| you perfectly well, but I plan to ignore you completely until I
| feel like responding".
| treeman79 wrote:
| Mine has trained the family that when he is hungry he starts
| slamming covered doors opening closed repeatedly.
|
| Started off that we kept food in there. So of course he would
| try and get in. This lead to him being fed when was trying to
| get in. So now it's a signal.
|
| We have been well trained
| richrichardsson wrote:
| A bit O/T, but presumably you meant "cupboard" doors. What
| I'm curious about is was this just a stretch of an
| autocorrect, or if English is a second language, as I could
| see that it might be a plausible approximation of cupboard if
| you'd only ever heard the word. I find this kind of thing
| fascinating, as when I'm trying to learn another language
| it's all too easy to hear something and switch it to another
| word that's close enough phonetically.
| treeman79 wrote:
| I had a series of strokes. I mix up words a lot since.
| Cupboard is correct.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| One of ours jumps up on top of our printer and reaches up on
| the wall and starts pawing at a poster when he's hungry.
| ratww wrote:
| What's on the poster?
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| A waterfall. I think he's basically just saying "Nice
| poster you've got there, be a shame if something happened
| to it"
| daenz wrote:
| I use "Let's go" for "it's time to leave this room", and the
| effect is that they flop on the ground, unwilling to move
| further. If that had been my intent, it would be a decent
| trick!
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| I believe that's cat for "No."
| cookiengineer wrote:
| We trained our cat from a very young age, and used it as a
| routine for getting treats or food.
|
| The cat is able to do the following:
|
| - sit
|
| - spin (rotate in a circle)
|
| - "up up" to stand on their feet, tapping my finger with the
| paws
|
| - "high five" and "low five"
|
| - "platz" to lay down on all fours
|
| - "come on" to follow around
|
| - "nom nom" to signal whether or not it wants food. You can see
| the eyes getting big immediately when it's very hungry.
|
| - whistling to come to a specific spot
|
| - double tap on a surface to signal to come to a specific spot
|
| There's a theory that cats that don't scream but make the
| "urrr"ing sounds don't treat their owners like a kitten but as
| a mutually respected individual. And most people think that
| cats try to make the "urrr" sounds to communicate with humans.
|
| These sounds vary in pitch and repetition and length and it's
| very easy to identify what our cat wants from us:
|
| - when it doesn't like something
|
| - when it wants to play hide and seek
|
| - when it wants to go outside
|
| - when it wants us to help it get to a specific spot (e.g.
| opening the door or making a fort on the bed so it can hide
| under the sheets).
|
| - when it wants to cuddle
|
| - when it wants to be hold in the arms so it can see what we're
| doing (on the kitchen counter, where it isn't allowed to jump
| on)
|
| - and, of course, when it is hungry, that's the high pitch
| scream most cats do.
|
| What I also wanted to add is that our cat has different moods
| of cooperating with the tricks it has to do when getting food.
| When it's only slightly hungry it tries to get away with
| cuddling us or "pushing" the head to the hand while
| purring...whereas when it's really really hungry it immediately
| does the tricks to get it over with.
|
| I guess that cats are intelligent enough for tricks but they
| are also easily bored, that's why you have to change tricks to
| keep their brains busy and healthy.
| clairity wrote:
| my cat totally knows her name but listens to most all of my
| vocalizations for anything she may want. she comes or meows if
| she hears something desireable (which, as she knows, her name
| is correlated with but not perfectly), and ignores me or leaves
| if she hears something undesireable (like "bath"). so it's not
| just a dichotomy between misunderstanding and apathy, but more
| a case of personal assessment and desire.
| ericlavigne wrote:
| With some assistance and teaching, cats and dogs are capable of
| learning to speak in sentences. In 2018, a speech pathologist
| named Christina Hunger, who used AAC devices to help special
| needs children learn to talk, tried applying a similar approach
| to her dog, Stella. It worked surprisingly well. Stella could
| speak in four-word sentences with a vocabulary of around 15 words
| by her first birthday, and was up to 49 words by her third
| birthday. Since then, many other people have followed the same
| process to teach their pets how to talk.
|
| https://www.hungerforwords.com/
|
| https://fluent.pet/
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8k2upr9vCE
| zabzonk wrote:
| Cats understand doors (particulary fridge doors (with food
| inside), or doors where it will be nice and warm) and will often
| paw them. And will go mental when you come back go mental when
| you go out for a fish supper (this is in Scotland).
|
| Otherwise, they just look at you as if you have the IQ of a
| wombat.
| rcarmo wrote:
| "Analysis:
|
| One cat completed only the first trial before escaping from the
| room and climbing out of reach."
|
| I quite enjoyed this bit.
| zwieback wrote:
| That and the fact that the statistics don't seem very crisp
| says everything you need to know about cats.
|
| Anecdotally I can confirm that my cats know each others names,
| not sure if they would recognize on a monitor though.
| [deleted]
| ogma wrote:
| WalterBright wrote:
| I found a book entitled "Electronics for Cats" stuffed under The
| Cat's bed. Should I be concerned?
| dghughes wrote:
| My cat knows when I am talking "cat talk" to another cat. She
| lifts her head up as if to let me know she knows what's going on.
| I feed a wild cat I've called Dorian since he's grey, he's lost
| an eye so I may rename him Doran. My cat may know the name but
| she knows the tone of my voice for sure.
| eimrine wrote:
| What if I never call my cat by name but call it as ksksksksksks?
| Friend cat ought to understand who is called but seems that is
| more about my voice then about names.
| purerandomness wrote:
| "Names" are just our arbitrary label for "a voice, forming a
| certain sound"
| friendly_chap wrote:
| My girlfriend and I recently separated. She took one cat, and one
| stayed with me. During a discussion in her apartment she
| mentioned the cat that stayed with me by name. Her cat
| frantically started looking around the apartment to see if his
| old buddy is there.
|
| Such amazing creatures.
| jjmorrison wrote:
| I'm convinced my cat fully understands english, but is biding his
| time to murder me and take over.
| lngnmn2 wrote:
| No. They just associate repeated sounds, without any semantic
| whatsoever, just like bird songs.
|
| Cats do not have the brain circuitry for semantic networks (based
| on a language concepts) evolved yet. So called language areas are
| required.
|
| How this crap is even got through a peer review? Rithoric
| question, I know.
| [deleted]
| robbedpeter wrote:
| https://youtu.be/uFhBd5mMkU8
|
| This is one of note thousands of videos of cats and dogs using
| buttons to talk.
|
| Cats, and all mammals, have a neocortex. Theirs is not as
| deeply layered or large as humans, but they most definitely
| have the ability to reason abstractly, are aware of themselves,
| think emotionally, and engage in complex, time aware planning
| over long periods.
|
| Your views are wrong. Language areas like Broca's region in the
| human brain are a consequence of physical distribution relative
| to the connectome and sensory endpoints. If you were to rewire
| the millions of connections to the lips, tongue, mouth, ears,
| and other body parts to be locations on the neocortex, broca's
| region would be somewhere different. You have about 1 square
| meter of neocortex responsible for all of your perception and
| cognition, and almost all of it is uniform. Neurons aren't
| differentiated by function, and animal experiments show that
| plasticity allows for arbitrary rewiring.
|
| The literature in the field shows that human cognition is
| likely superior to other species in the depth of cortical
| layering and size of the organ. It's likely the only reason
| elephants and whales or other animals with larger brains can't
| compete with humans is the mere absence of hands and vocal
| organs. Our range of colors and audible senses are important
| but lesser than many animals.
|
| Give an orca hands and human speech and there's nothing we know
| about neuroscience to imply that the animal wouldn't be smarter
| and more capable than humans. There's a lot of evidence that
| the killer whale would be more intelligent than humans in many
| ways.
|
| The cortical layering and columnar architecture of neuron
| clusters differs between species, and seems to dictate the
| cognitive depth of abstract reasoning. There may be different
| algorithmic constructions in neural connections that favor
| human level cognition.
|
| In principle, however, human brains aren't terribly different
| from many other large mammals, and elephants certainly display
| complex, emotional, symbolic, and abstract reasoning well
| within a range comparable to human experience.
|
| Your notion of animal cognition is unscientific and biased
| toward an assumption of human superiority that isn't grounded
| in fact. Neuroscience is slowly and tirelessly matching toward
| reverse engineering the brain. The more we learn, the more we
| find similarity in the basic functions of mammal brains, from
| mice to humans to blue whales.
| ntoskrnl wrote:
| I watched the video and I want to believe, but... I don't
| know. I have cats, I know cats are intelligent, cats can be
| trained to understand single words, etc. But I'm just not
| convinced any cat can string together English sentences like
| this. Also, the concept of time might be a bit abstract for a
| cat who is always living in the present moment. And then
| there's the most viewed video on that channel[1] where he
| presses the "cuddle" button, and then... doesn't cuddle. He
| seems like he knows pressing a button get a reaction, but he
| doesn't know which button is which. Good morning human, time
| to play with the disembodied voice buttons again.
|
| Like I said though, I want to believe. Can you think of any
| longer videos that might convince a skeptic?
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvgfI9P377U
| a_shovel wrote:
| This one [1] isn't very long, but I think it shows that the
| cat (Billi) does associate the buttons with a meaning.
|
| The owner is playing with Billi with a toy on a string,
| then drops it on her back. She then quickly (within 10
| seconds) presses "No", then "Back", to tell her owner to
| get the toy off of her back. If she was just pressing
| buttons to get a reaction, this would be no more likely
| than "Morning" "Love you", or "Want" "Hello", or any other
| arbitrary pair of buttons.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYPFnDOPTQo
| ntoskrnl wrote:
| That is more compelling, but I'm still not convinced. Out
| of all the videos I've watched it's the only one that
| comes close. Smells like broken clock theory to me.
|
| "No" is another higher-level abstract concept that I
| wouldn't expect anyone to master before more basic
| concepts. If the cat could say "ears, no" or "tummy, no"
| with similar confidence, then I would be convinced it
| understands combining the concept of "no" with another
| word. And those seem easy to test too. Cats don't like
| you messing with those areas.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Those videos are comically misleading.
|
| The author acts as if cats can understand abstract concepts
| and combining words into a SVO grammar. And with dozens of
| words!
|
| "later morning" "later play [with] dad" "love you mommy"
|
| This is simply far outside the cognitive abilities of cats.
|
| Edit: Confirmation bias is so strong that I get downvotes for
| writing this.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| You're getting downvoted because you are making a strong
| contrary claim with no evidence whatsoever. It's the
| equivalent of two kids going:
|
| "Yes it is!"
|
| "No it's not!"
|
| "Yeahuh it is!"
| ordu wrote:
| _> Give an orca hands and human speech and there 's nothing
| we know about neuroscience to imply that the animal wouldn't
| be smarter and more capable than humans._
|
| Humans have one more difference from others: human cubs are
| born helpless. They even do not know how to use their eyes.
| They need to learn everything themselves. All the pre-wired
| genetic firmware was destroyed by evolution. It is very
| inconvenient for mothers of course, but on the other hand
| this shift from hardware to software gives unprecedented
| abilities to adapt to different environments. And probably it
| gives a lot of experience of making sense of the mess of
| input signal that can be useful later. And of course it is a
| factor of a selection: if you cannot learn how to use your
| eyes, then you are not Sapience enough to breed.
| otikik wrote:
| I think that video is terribly cute and the cat is adorable,
| but I also remain unconvinced that a cat can understand,
| "morning now, before night". That is too abstract. For
| context, it took my (then) 4 year old human child many months
| to understand "before" and "after". He would use them
| indistinctly to mean "not now".
| News-Dog wrote:
| A friend of mine tooking in a cat that had been owned by a deaf
| family.
|
| This cat didn't make any noise (meow) at all, if she wanted to go
| out, etc.,
|
| she would run between you legs, (yes, totally under-foot!) a
| major trip hazard.
|
| I taught her how to vocalize very quickly, which she understood
| we would hear, and would respond too.
| bitwize wrote:
| Grown cats don't meow to each other. It's a noise they make to
| get our attention. Each cat must figure out, on their own, that
| meowing works to get humans' attention.
|
| A cat with deaf human parents would have never learned this, or
| would have learned that meowing doesn't work and to try
| something else.
| arethuza wrote:
| "works to get humans' attention"
|
| Our cat manages to make a noise that sounds like a young
| child screaming "mum" - it really upsets my wife.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Cats definitely meow to each other. For adults it's typically
| an aggressive warning, but it happens.
|
| It's also worth noting that kittens and their mothers
| communicate heavily via meows even when no humans are
| present. Food-begging is a pretty straightforward association
| from there.
| vmception wrote:
| Exactly, cats have an extremely wide range of frequencies
| they can both create and hear, if they are vocalizing at all
|
| They almost all independently chose to pick the signature one
| we associate with cats, just for us
| bitwize wrote:
| It has a lot to do with the fact that a cat's meow hits
| many of the same frequencies as a crying human child.
| vmception wrote:
| I've read that before, it engages well but I'm not sure
| they all know what human babies sound like, it just gets
| a reliable response and other frequencies are either
| ignored or don't get then the response they like the most
| bitwize wrote:
| Yeah, cats don't necessarily know that, they stumble
| across it by trial and error. _We_ respond to it because
| we are to some extent hardwired to have our attention
| grasped by that kind of sound, so we tend to our crying
| babies.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Meowing is definitely a "please parent me" behavior. It took
| quite some time to domesticate two feral cats that were nearby
| -- many years. The meowing reflex was not present until much
| much later. One cat would open her mouth but forget to make the
| sound, but she eventually caught up to her brother, who would
| correct her by looking at her and meowing if she forgot.
| t-3 wrote:
| It's possible she was making high-frequency noise beyond the
| detection range of the human ear. I've read that cats use
| these kinds of noises for calling their kittens.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| So, I totally believe some cats are intelligent enough to
| understand that a particular human vocalization is usually
| "aimed" at them. However...looking at the boxplots, the data is
| underwhelming. There is a huge overlap between the congruent and
| incongruent response times, even in household cats. If anything,
| this is evidence that fewer cats than expected notice the
| incongruence.
|
| The alternative explanation being, of course, that very few cats
| care. And, really, in these circumstances, why should they? But
| the boxplots demonstrate that the effect here is marginal.
| t-3 wrote:
| I have two cats, a young male (perhaps not coincidentally, a
| colony rescue?) and a very elderly female. When I let them
| outside, if I call them to come in, the younger will find the
| older and herd her to the door. He then vigorously resists coming
| inside himself. He's also very vocal, and his tone of voice will
| change depending on whether he's happy to see me and wanting pets
| or if I'm ruining his stalking and spying or he doesn't want to
| come inside (the other just ignores me and does whatever she
| wants).
| tarentel wrote:
| My cat has at least 20 meows. I understand about 5 of them.
| Some of them are easy, like if she wants food or if she wants
| me to follow her for whatever reasons. Some of them I have no
| idea what she's going on about but I can tell it's different
| then her wanting to play or just wants to be pet.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| For real. Off the top of my head there's, MeerrrOOOOOwww
| MerrrOOOOwww, the loudest one, huge inflection in the middle.
| Generally while strolling through the house, back and forth.
| I think that's the "I'm bored" one. But he'll also do it if I
| stay up. If someone is out of bed past curfew he'll do it. I
| have to close the bedroom door or he'll wake the wife.
|
| If you say summon him he'll probably ignore you but if he's
| interested he'll whimper errrderrruuderr softly while walking
| toward you.
|
| Then there's, MOWLLLLL MOWLLLLL, slowly howling, that
| sometimes means he's sick and gunna throw up. Usually right
| on both the rug and the carpet.
|
| Then there's, MAHHH MAHHH, just two in quick succession,
| which literally sounds like mama. That's the I want something
| one, generally he wants catnip from the outside plant.
|
| Just heard him go MOOOOW MUUUROWLLL MUUUROWLLL howling, but
| he's just pacing back and forth from the window and now
| wimpering at me. So I assume he's misses mama (the wife).
|
| The funniest is and most unique is, BRRRRAHDAHDOP, which he
| yells before tearing full speed through the house or down the
| hallway for seemingly no reason. I think that's either "Look
| at me" or he's so excited he can't contain himself and it
| slips out naturally.
|
| Side note: this was an interesting challenge creating and
| optimizing these onomatopoeias
| sakopov wrote:
| > (the other just ignores me and does whatever she wants).
|
| This made me remember a funny meme about dogs and cats.
|
| "A dog is able to learn up to 250 words and tricks and
| gestures. A dog can count up to 5 and perform simple math.
| Equivalent human age: 3. A cat doesn't give a fuck and is sick
| of your shit. Equivalent human age: 42"
| smcl wrote:
| A weird amount of people I knew growing up named their cats just
| "cat" or "kitten". Every dog had a name (even in households that
| had a "cat" cat) but not all cats. I wonder if the cats figure
| their own names out in these cases :)
| praptak wrote:
| It's acceptance of the fact that cats don't respond to
| commands.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| That's how I grew up. We always called them "cat" or "kitty"
| and would get more specific as needed and based on how we felt
| about them at the moment. Anything from "the cute black one" to
| "that orange fool."
|
| We were always told that no one really owns a cat, but we
| should take care of them all because it's good luck.
| TheBigSalad wrote:
| That's weird. I don't think I could live with an animal and
| not name it. But then again, I named my Roomba.
| throwanem wrote:
| My last cat was with me for 20 years and neither of us
| seemed to feel the need for a name. We both knew who he
| was, and why bother beyond that? I think the difference is
| that dogs who live with humans tend to look to us to help
| them understand who they are, while cats never want telling
| no matter how close the association.
|
| I didn't use the "pet voice" with him, either. Dogs, sure,
| but generally when I have something to say to a cat I say
| it like I would to a human, and that seems to mostly work
| okay.
|
| That said, I find as with dogs that cats respond more to
| pitch than to content; I'm not sure their theory of mind
| for us extends far enough to recognizing that we also have
| language, but they certainly do learn some of the sounds we
| make.
|
| When I needed him to come find me, I'd whistle just above
| the highest pitch I could hear, and he came running because
| I'd taken care to associate that sound with treats in his
| kittenhood. As his hearing range contracted in his dotage,
| I switched to the more usual "pspspsps" sort of sound,
| which worked about as well.
|
| Granted, I grew up with cats, and my mom was of a mind that
| the best way for me to learn their style of manners was to
| let them teach me directly. This worked well enough that
| it's long since ceased to be a surprise when someone says
| something like "but our cat doesn't like _anybody!_ " So I
| don't know how well my experience is likely to generalize.
| smcl wrote:
| Thanks, reading someone recounting their decades-long
| friendship with a cat was a nice chaser for the drowning
| kittens comment :)
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| My neighbors' father would also think nothing of drowning
| unwanted kittens among other "old world" type of things
| that seem ghastly now.
| smcl wrote:
| Oof yeah that is something I only heard of as an adult -
| a friend's dad apparently did it a couple of times.
| Gruesome
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Probably says a lot about how much brutality we've
| engineered out of daily living. I recall having a
| visceral reaction to hearing about the kittens as a
| child, and I imagine it's fairly natural to feel that
| way. I'm glad I lived in a time and place where that kind
| of desensitization wasn't necessary.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Unfortunately it is still fairly common in small villages
| (in Hungary at least - which is quite poor outside of its
| capital). Spaying is expensive and cats do produce plenty
| of offsprings, and it is not even like with dogs that you
| can just keep inside the backyard..
|
| (Though what I heard about is not drowning, but slamming
| them hard to something :/)
| [deleted]
| LancerSykera wrote:
| I grew up in a house of at least a dozen cats. All had names.
| Our very first one, Lightning (who was seemingly very
| intelligent and lived to his late teens), did not know his name
| as Lightning. For all he knew, his name was Puss-Puss, because
| he had been called that a lot when he was younger, and
| responded extremely well to it throughout his life.
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