Cats Can Understand Laws of Physics! - New Scientific Study Discovers
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I adore both cats and dogs. I didn't want cat lovers to feel abandoned after my last article about pooches, so I decided to post this very interesting study about cat's cognition.
Scientists from Kyoto University in Japan have recently discovered that cats understand principle of causality (that certain actions can cause certain reactions) and have some rudimentary understanding of elements of physics such as gravity.
The experiment was performed with help of 30 domestic cats (22 cats from cat cafes and 8 house cats). The whole research was recorded using video cameras, while the scientists tested the responses of each cat, individually, by using plastic container that included iron balls and electromagnet stuck under the bottom. If the electromagnet was switched on, it prevented the balls from rattling or dropping out. In all phases of the experiment, the researchers shook the container for 5 seconds, making the rattling sound or no sound at all (when electromagnet was activated). Then, the container was turned upside down for another 5 seconds causing the balls to either fall out or stay stuck to activated electromagnet. In the end, the container was put upright, in the front of the cat for 15 seconds, so the cat could explore it.
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The experiment was divided into 4 phases with different conditions. The first and fourth phases were consistent with the principle of causality.
Rattling sound with objects falling out [consistent with the principle of cause and effect]
Rattling sound with no objects falling out [inconsistent with the principle of cause and effect]
No rattling sound with objects falling out [inconsistent with the principle of cause and effect]
No rattling sound with no objects falling out [consistent with the principle of cause and effect]
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The scientists counted for how long the felines looked at the shaken container. The cats looked much longer (as we know the cats ) at the containers which were shaken with a sound, than the ones which stayed silent. This fact indicates that cats applied laws of physics to conclude the appearance of iron balls, accordingly to what they heard. Basically, they predicted if the iron balls would drop out if the container was upside down.
What was very interesting is the fact that inconsistent conditions of the third and the second phases, also aroused their attention, pointing out that cats realized that these conditions do not fit their understanding of logical causality. After these observations, scientists arrived at conclusion that the cats must have some rudimentary understanding of gravity.
The study suggests that surrounding environment affects cat's ability to gather information, according to what they heard (the previous study by the same group of scientists discovered that feline's predict the location of invisible objects by using their hearing).
Further research will focus on finding out if the cats can obtain information like size and quantity from what they hear.
The study has been published in the journal Animal Cognition.
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References:
Animal Cognition, 2016 , "There’s no ball without noise: cats’ prediction of an object from noise"
BBC, 2016 , "Cats understand physics, according to a group of scientists in Japan"
Cosmos, 2016 , "Cats use basic physics to home in on hiding prey"
Cat's are psycho, vengeful little fur balls that should have never been domesticated by the Ancient Egyptians.....but you did a good article so have an upvote anyway.
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Haha well depends on the cat. Anyway, we shouldn't try to anthropomorphize behaviour of cats. They just do what they are designed to do by nature. We may consider some of their behaviour as "vengeful", but this is just projection of our cognitive concepts.
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Vengeful.. hmm.. well as I type this my 'vengeful furball' is laying in my arms on her back sound asleep. That is her usual place In the evening. If that is being vengeful.. gawd.. I could use some people like that LOL
I really don't hate cats, just trying to show how smart I am by knowing that the Egyptians domesticated them....LOL!
domesticated would be loosely associated. You are aware dogs have owners, cats have staff eh?
Yeah people are the worst :-)
Understand is too strong a word. It's rather that they are cognitively able enough to expect from previous observations that inanimate objects would fall down onto earth. Which is not really very groundbreaking.
Well they connect it to the sound so it is not just about falling. As you see above, they predicted that the objects would fall down after the noise and were caught surprised that it did not happen (phase 2). They have some basic understandings of how objects act according to gravity. Also they wer much more inquisitive and explored the box when there was there was no sound but objects fell out anyway (phase 3).
"It's rather that they are cognitively able enough to expect from previous observations that inanimate objects would fall down onto earth"
Isn't that what humans do too? We are not born with this understanding. We learn it through observation since birth, as well.
In that they expect objects to fall, yes. I wouldn't say that they understand gravity though. Humans didn't understand gravity until Newton, now cats would? Really?
Was it understanding of cause and effect or a simple post hoc ergo propter hoc? We humans often fall to this one, and I really am very skeptical of claims such as this. It's already well established that many animals can learn repeated chains of events and expect them to repeat further, but this does not mean that they understand cause and effect.
Exactly this is. But this is not understanding of physics, in fact humans for millennia after the invention of writing didn't even come close to.
It is quite obvious now that animals have cognitive abilities and it's good that these are researched, but claims that cats are able to understand gravity or cause and effect are purely sensationalist.
The experiment didn't say who between coffee cats and house cats are more reactive :p
Hah, yeah good point :-) They should have included the amount of coffee drank :-)
Put them in a box with a uranium nucleus! :D
:-P I don't think that they are that smart to understand the laws of quantum physics. Anyway, they would probably cheat the results of such study as soon as you looked at their behaviour :-P
héhé, good one :D
An obvious one but always good
:-D
That's interesting. But I know the trajectory of my ball when my best friend throws it against the wall. I know what angle he is about to kick it and the direction it will go to block it. When I give my ball to the cat it just sits there like it is stupid. Not impressed with the cat.
Why would the cat want to play with the ball? They just have no interest to play with it :-)
Adult cats play with other things like caught mice or bird (of bait on rod), not balls unless they are very little and you give them tiny ball made out of squeezed tinfoil so they can chase it on the flat floor :-)
Ok, thanks for the tip. It just sleeps all the time anyways. Maybe we need a new cat? Oh I like birds and mice too. I actually caught a mouse. I think it died of a heart attack. My favorite thing this summer was looking for bunnies. There were 100's of them at the school and even a few I chased in the back yard. So much fun!
:-)
upvoted
Thanks :-)
Cats have an EQ ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient ) of one. Dogs are 1.2. Oddly enough Ravens have an EQ of 2.49. (Humans are at the top of the list with an EQ of 7.44)
Interesting. I don't think it is not that odd. I know that what matters is how many folds there are on the brain. I don't remember if EQ takes it into acount.
Also, I think that we should not compare EQ in different groups of animals like birds and mammals. Just compare within one group.
the PURPOSE of EQ (Encephalization Quotient) is cross species comparison. If you only want to compare within one species then us IQ. Oddly enough Cats have a higher neutron density than dogs. I fidn it REALLY interesting that Corvids (ravens and crows) are the equivalent to some primates.
That is interesting. Thank your for clarifying. I did not kwow that. I knew a lot about IQ but not about EQ. It looks that I need to learn more about this. I'm going to read up more to fill up the hole in my understandings :-)
Your welcome. I posted a link about EQ. It's wikipedia but that's a place to start.
One thing to remember. IQ (mind) is an emergent phenomena. We have approximately ZERO understanding of how emergent phenomena work.
Quote
An emergent behavior or emergent property can appear when a number of simple entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviors as a collective.
End Quote
A non biological emergent phenomena to illustrate the point would be a hurricane.
Quote
Hurricanes emerge from mutual positive feedback between wind, humidity, evaporation of sufficiently warm ocean surface waters and Coriolis effects.
End Quote.
If you look at water, humidity and evaporation rates in isolation would you ever suspect that a class five hurricane capable of destroying New Orleans , having the power of thousand of atomic bombs might be the result?
Me neither.
Similarly looking at a mess of grey matter all squished up in a skull would not predict that Bubba (my black cat, just like in the picture) would follow me from room to room every time I get up from the computer and would sleep under my bed at night.
Who could predict such an emergent behavior?
Also thank you for very interesting description of emergent phenomenon