Anyone who has ever had cats knows how difficult it can be to get them to do anything they don’t already want to do. But it seems that the house cats themselves have had distinctly less trouble getting humans to do their bidding, according to a report published in the July 14th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.
The rather crafty felines motivate people to fill their food dishes by sending something of a mixed signal: an urgent cry or meowing sound embedded within an otherwise pleasant purr. The result is a call that humans generally find annoyingly difficult to ignore.
“The embedding of a cry within a call that we normally associate with contentment is quite a subtle means of eliciting a response,” said Karen McComb of the University of Sussex. “Solicitation purring is probably more acceptable to humans than overt meowing, which is likely to get cats ejected from the bedroom.” She suggests that this form of cat communication sends a subliminal sort of message, tapping into an inherent sensitivity that humans and other mammals have to cues relevant in the context of nurturing their offspring.
McComb said that she was inspired by her own cat, who consistently wakes her up in the mornings with a very insistent purr. She learned in talking with other cat owners that some of their cats too had mastered the same manipulative trick. As a scientist who already studied vocal communication in mammals, from elephants to lions, she decided to get to the bottom of it.
It turned out that wasn’t so easy to do. The cats were perfectly willing to use their coercive cries in private, but when strangers came around they tended to clam right up. Her team therefore had to train cat owners to record their own cats’ cries.
In a series of playback experiments with those calls, they found that humans judged the purrs recorded while cats were actively seeking food as more urgent and less pleasant than those made in other contexts, even if they had never had a cat themselves.
“We found that the crucial factor determining the urgency and pleasantness ratings that purrs received was an unusual high-frequency element — reminiscent of a cry or meow — embedded within the naturally low-pitched purr,” McComb said. “Human participants in our experiments judged purrs with high levels of this element to be particularly urgent and unpleasant.” When the team re-synthesised the recorded purrs to remove the embedded cry, leaving all else unchanged, the urgency ratings for those calls decreased significantly.
McComb said she thinks this cry occurs at a low level in cats’ normal purring, “but we think that cats learn to dramatically exaggerate it when it proves effective in generating a response from humans.” In fact, not all cats use this form of purring at all, she said, noting that it seems to most often develop in cats that have a one-on-one relationship with their owners rather than those living in large households, where their purrs might get overlooked by poorly trained people.
In those instances, she said, cats seem to find it more effective to stick to the standard meow.
The researchers include Karen McComb, University of Sussex, Brighton, U.K.; Anna M. Taylor, University of Sussex, Brighton, U.K.; Christian Wilson, University of Sussex, Brighton, U.K.; Benjamin D. Charlton, Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia, GA.
The title is the cat who walks through walls. Read enjoy.
Does anyone remember, or has anyone seen the scene in Star Trek, TNG, where Data (super smart robot) is attempting to train his cat … however a friend is watching this training and realizes the cat has actually trained Data.
Its pretty funny…. very true and well happened many, many years ago. I just thought it was common knowledge that cats are the new masters.
It is interesting to note that many individualsare reporting the ‘new’ mew, so to speak. My personable tuxedo uses a wonderful breathy trilling to wake me. As I stumble towards the kitchen he encourages me with the embedded mew, and when I am required to raise his chubby chops to his elevated consumption space he will direct with a more brisk purr/mew How is it that these fey felines are turning en masse to this new language ….what is their secret communications network???
>>Feline Scientist Ray “Chubby Chops” Hubbard reveals new fe-tech allowing supersonic feline vocalisations to be piggybacked on internet connections present in the domain. “Kitty engineering in da house, y’all,” Ray trilled. “This will enable much faster training and will increase feline satisfaction significantly.” Laboratory Assistant Fuzzy “Butt” D. Pomeranian acts as Inter Species Liaison, Commissary Auditor and General Security Officer, but gets no extra rations for it.
Until you have been awaken by a cold kitty nose to a closed eyelid, you’ve not lived. There is little else to compare to awaking instantly from a sound sleep to find your entire field of vision is cat face …
That was pretty terrible.
I feel that you wrote this about my son and how he does this every morning and if we do have a day that we can sleep in he will not stop until either my husband or I get up and feed him. If we ignore him to long he is not afraid to sit on our faces until we start to run out of oxygen and he than looks at us like what? Since your up feed me I am hungry!!! This is so funny.
your son meows?!?
I have a cat that is either slightly retarded or brain damaged, and she can’t figure out the whole purr/meow combo. She only manages the annoying meow, which is probably why I want to throw her in the swimming pool when she starts up.
the cat was taken away from its mom too early
Still no cure for Cancer.
you are very right. read the book Dr. Mary’s Monkey to know why.
My cat knows the cure for cancer but won’t tell me unless I give him a double-dose of catnip and then he’s too stoned to remember it.
My cat is not quite so subtle. Her way of getting us up to ffed her is going to my nightstand, and my wife’s, and she just starts knocking things off to annoy us to the point that we will get up and feed her just to make her stop. Annoying but very effective.
Ours tried that, and also tried meowing. They have since learned that if they make ANY noise at all before one of us humans starts talking, they get locked out of the bedroom and then not only do they not get fed, they don’t get to snuggle with us either. They changed their ways pretty quickly, because they love sleeping on the bed.
yeah, my cat does that too. I just annoy her right back.
..Caturdays
Really, your questioning that? When she says that he sits on there face until they run out of oxygen and wake up, your concerned that he meows?
My cat wakes me up by taking a dump on my pillow. I think you guys are all pretty lucky to be honest.
I hate my cat.
Maybe you should quit being mean to your cat. You or something is stressing it out. That is why it is taking a dump on you pillow. Clean its littler box and keep it clean. Play with and pet your cat. Its just a little cat that wants to love you. Love it back.
Or are you too tough for something like that?
Bahahahaha!
That’s why I am a dog person
In the morning, my dog just lays with me until I get up and let it out.
I think your cate senses that you hate him and that is why he takes a dump on your pillow.
When I don’t respond to Jazz & Broadway/ wake up meows, they walk on my clock radio and turn it on. I leap up, look at the time-generally around 5AM, & say “Who is the idiot that set the alarm for 5AM?” I glance at Jazz & Broadway who look very innocent. I go back to sleep and five minutes later, they repeat their new game, “See Mama Jump.” I try to catch them and kick them out of my bedroom, but they run under the bed. This is my wake-up routine.
I’m lucky that they let me live in their house, feed them and clean up after them. As for manipulating me…no way!
Olive requests/demands food with short sharp ‘ngao!’ She vocalizes while purring, much in the manner of the Pepo video, but very much louder.
Not needing a ‘soliciting purr,’ she seems to sing/purr from sheer enjoyment.
NB: Maine Coon cats are notorious for their ‘trilling.’ Is this another version of the vocalised purr?
My ancient cat actually claws at me untill I feed him. Usually at 400am. But hey for 16 years old he can do as he damn well pleases.
I’m so glad we now have scientifically proved what most cat owners knew all along; a cats’ meow is directly influenced by the message they are trying to communicate.
Kind’ve like people. Is it supernatural, or just a simple consequence of having such a wide range of expression? You decide!
My brother’s feline wonder was a dog in a cat’s body. This little black fuzzball would not only fetch and jump through hoops (he taught himself), but he was the single most expressive cat I’ve ever known. Most cats only speak to gain tangibles or in reaction (ex; you bump one by accident and it seems to be saying “heeeeey!”). Bart would walk up to you and tell you about his day in a sort of meowing Morse code such as, “Meow ma mew. Ma mow mow ow.”
My own cat Tinker was notably silent before spending time with Bart. Forever after, he would openly vocalize his reactions to just about anything and even initiate a limited form of conversation, such as distinguishing a concerned inflection to his meows when he notices I’m down and comes to check on me. This may signal a learned behavior as opposed to a natural instinct, as stated in the article, although it’s been proven that cats can express themselves in a multitude of fashions even in the wild.
my cat was used to going outside at night in the tropics. We moved to a big city where there are seasons and I don’t let her outdoors for fear of disease, etc. Now she crys a lot, but a year and a half has passed and she still crys for hours to go outdoors. The thing is, I have a yard, (even in the city) and when I garden, I let her out, supervised. But she wants to be outside all the time and can’t understand why I wont open the door. She crys at 1, 3, 5 in the morning for hours, and during the day as well. What advice do you have?