Daily Cat Lesson #20: How Smart Is Your Cat?

🐾 Daily Cat Lesson #20: How Smart Is Your Cat?

Probably smarter than he lets you know!
For a long time cats were less studied than dogs, partly because they are notoriously uncooperative experimental subjects. Modern cognition research has found some surprisingly sophisticated abilities.

• 🐾 Cats recognize familiar human voices.
  They can distinguish their owner's voice from unfamiliar people.
• 🐾 Cats keep track of where you are.
  In one clever experiment, cats heard their owner's voice from one location and then suddenly from another. The cats appeared surprised, suggesting they had been mentally tracking where their invisible human was supposed to be.
  💡 In the "Mental map of the human" experiment, the researchers essentially teleported the owner with speakers, and the cats noticed that something impossible had happened. That's much more interesting than saying "cats are smart." - PLOS ONE cat cognition study
• 🐾 Cats understand that hidden things still exist.
  Cats show object permanence: something doesn't cease to exist simply because it disappeared from view.
• 🐾 And they are very good at learning us.
  Cats learn routines, sounds and associations: which cupboard contains food, what the can opener means, when you normally get up and which particular meow gets a response.
• 🐾 So why are cats difficult to test?
  Because intelligence and willingness to participate in somebody else's experiment are two entirely different things.
  Your cat may understand the assignment perfectly.
  He just doesn't see what's in it for him.

🐈📸 Top Tropicals rescued cat Bob at PeopleCats.Garden.

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