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A scientific breakthrough underscores what my cat-fanatic editor has long believed: humans are essentially simps for their cats.
Researchers from the University of São Paulo in Brazil have found that a cat’s meow is essentially a demand that we, their mortal lessers, solve their problem.
To prove the point, scientists introduced an “unsolvable task” to 38 domestic cats to assess what happened when their simp solvers were present versus nowhere in sight.
Shockingly, the nonplussed felines were four times more likely to get vocal when a human was there to hear them.
“These results are consistent with meowing playing a communicative role in cat-human interactions,” the study authors wrote in a paper published in Animal Behaviour.
It’s well established that cats meow frequently and at great volume when their humans are around and are decidedly mum in their own company.
Further, feral cats meow at a much lower rate than their domesticated brethren, indicating that the sound is at least partially influenced by the presence of human beings.
Earlier research found that the sounds domesticated cats make have evolved over time to make the tone more coercive to humans.
“Short, higher-pitched sounds are more pleasing to our auditory system, because young humans have high-pitched voices, so cats have evolved to curry our favor,” Jonathan Losos writes in “The Cat’s Meow: How Cats Evolved From the Savanna to Your Sofa.”
Over thousands of years of cohabitation, their purrs have also evolved to sound “nicer” to our ears.
However, it is the meow, specifically, that seems designed to make us do their bidding, with different pitches that loosely translate to “feed me, you knave;” “permit me royal entry through this blocked portal, worm;” and “you are sanctioned to pet me, plebe.”
In this latest round of research, Naila Fukimoto of the University of São Paulo and her team recruited 38 feline familiars who had a history of meowing for and around food.
Each feline participant was faced with — and tortured by — “an unsolvable task”: A snack trapped inside a small plastic box punctured with holes.
The cats could smell and see the treat but lacked the requisite opposable thumbs to access it.
Researchers observed how the cats reacted after one minute when no human was present versus when a human was in the room.
If a human was there to hear them, the cats got vocal; researchers recorded 85 meows compared to just 20 when the cat was alone.
Statistical analysis showed that cats were 16 times more likely to meow when a human was around.
“During an unsolvable task involving their favorite food item, cats produced significantly more meows when a human was present compared to when they were alone, which is consistent with meowing functioning as a socially directed signal,” the study authors wrote.
In addition to amplifying their pleas, cats in the company of humans gazed imploringly toward their minions. They shifted their heads between the humans and the snack box, clearly instructing them to solve the problem.
Conversely, when the cats were alone, they spent a majority of their time staring at the door, presumably summoning their human to help.
These behaviors indicate that the cats were not simply rallying against the injustice of a captive snack but modifying their behavior in the presence of someone who could help.
Researchers underscore that this doesn’t prove cats consciously view humans as problem solvers or calculate every vocalization to manipulate them. Still, it does indicate that meowing is much more purposeful than an emotional reflex.
“The recipient-directed nature of the majority of meows recorded in our study indicates that cats were not simply vocalizing into the environment but targeting a specific audience, consistent with recipient-specific signaling,” the researchers concluded.
The team noted some limitations, namely that the subject pool was small and that they deliberately highlighted cats with a history of food vocalization.
