Cats' expectations are based on
what they hear
Date: June 14, 2016
Source: Springer
Cats understand the principle of
cause and effect as well as some elements of physics. Combining these abilities
with their keen sense of hearing, they can predict where possible prey hides.
These are the findings of researchers from Kyoto University in Japan, led by
Saho Takagi and published in Springer's journal Animal Cognition.
Previous work conducted by the
Japanese team established that cats predict the presence of invisible objects
based on what they hear. In the present study, the researchers wanted to find
out if cats use a causal rule to infer if a container holds an object, based on
whether it is shaken along with a sound or not. The team also wanted to
establish if cats expect an object to fall out or not, once the container is
turned over.
Thirty domestic cats were
videotaped while an experimenter shook a container. In some cases this action
went along with a rattling sound. In others it did not, to simulate that the
vessel was empty. After the shaking phase, the container was turned over,
either with an object dropping down or not.
Two experimental conditions were
congruent with physical laws, where shaking was accompanied by a (no) sound and
an (no) object to fall out of the container. The other two conditions were
incongruent to the laws of physics. Either a rattling sound was followed by no
object dropping out of the container or no sound while shaking led to a falling
object.
The cats looked longer at the
containers which were shaken together with a noise. This suggests that cats
used a physical law to infer the existence (or absence) of objects based on
whether they heard a rattle (or not). This helped them predict whether an
object would appear (or not) once the container was overturned.
The animals also stared longer at
containers in incongruent conditions, meaning an object dropped despite its
having been shaken noiselessly or the other way around. It is as if the cats
realized that such conditions did not fit into their grasp of causal logic.
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