Cats "Exploit" Humans By Purring 503
An anonymous reader notes a BBC report on research recently published in the journal Current Biology, indicating that cats manipulate humans by adding a baby-like cry to their purring. "Cat owners may have suspected as much, but it seems our feline friends have found a way to manipulate us humans. Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered that cats use a 'soliciting purr' to overpower their owners and garner attention and food. Unlike regular purring, this sound incorporates a 'cry,' with a similar frequency to a human baby's. The team said cats have 'tapped into' a human bias — producing a sound that humans find very difficult to ignore."
Self domesticated (Score:5, Informative)
Don't forget that cats self-domesticated so the the evolution of this kind of behaviour would have been baised from the begining.
hidden effect (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Huh??? (Score:5, Informative)
I have never in my whole life experienced a purr that had ANY recognizable component of "baby cry" in it.
It's not said that it sounds like a baby cry but only that it's on the same frequency.
Re:Huh??? (Score:3, Informative)
From another report from LiveScience [livescience.com], I gather that it would be most recognizable to you as being called just a "baby cry," but with a subtle sound the same as cats make when purring mixed in, rather than as purring with a crying sound, but the language is utterly ambiguous and it seems hard to distinguish when they mean meowing, purring, or whatever.
Re:Evolution or Intelligent Design? (Score:5, Informative)
Intelligent design is a term used for a fairly specific type of religious sophistry.
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
Soylent Green Cat Food is PEOPLE!!!!!!!
The cats won't mind that; size is likely the only reason you're seen as a provider and not prey. Go jump in the nearest lion enclosure if you think otherwise. ;-)
Re:I probably shouldn't have kids... (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, lolkidz already exists : http://lolkids.com/ [lolkids.com] . It has a S instead of a Z, but it's the same thing. Looking at it for a moment and it doesn't even come close to been funny...
Thorndike, Skinner, other Psychologists disagree (Score:1, Informative)
E.L. Thorndike's experiments investigating learning were conducted using cats and while B.F. Skinner may have used rats more than cats, he too used cats in his studies of learning.
If you want to study an animal's intelligence / learning capabilities / reasoning capabilities you just have to be smart enough to construct the experiment properly.
If you're not familiar with those experiments (and your post suggests you are not), E.L. Thorndike studied cats learning to escape from boxes to get food. Pretty good motivators for cats (unless it's in need of "boxhab").
Not too dissimilar from arguments over whether men or women are smarter -- it is key to control for equally-valued motivators when assessing that :-)
ever been around a feral cat or dog? (Score:4, Informative)
If you want to see what domesticated looks like, look at dogs, or horses. Domesticated dogs and horses take their instructions from human masters. Cats, as a rule, don't.
If you want to see what non-domesticated looks like, have a feral cat in your house for an hour or two. Or a feral dog.
If you and your house survive, congratulations. Cats ARE, in fact, domesticated animals, as are dogs- because they have early and often human contact. If kittens (or puppies) are not handled frequently once they get beyond a certain stage, they won't recognize or trust humans.
Re:Self domesticated aka evolution (Score:2, Informative)
>You must of never owned a cat.
You must have failed English.
Re:Definitely not evolution - adaptation, maybe (Score:5, Informative)
Cats are very unusual in evolutionary terms. For solitary animals, they have remarkably well developed social skills. The ability to make a wide variety of vocal sounds is usually associated with social development and mating habits too.
Clearly humans have not been a major factor in their evolution - we have not been domesticating them for nearly long enough. By chance they developed into cute, furry and agreeable little things that human beings enjoy having around. They are intelligent enough to manipulate us quite successfully and yet, despite being fully aware of what is happening we accept and even enjoy it. Being highly independent they have their own little lives which fascinate us.
Maybe it's just anthropomorphism, but it's certainly highly fortunate from the cat's point of view. Average life expectancy in the wild is a few years, domesticated it's 10+.