Monroe Chat

Cats Do Control Humans, Study Finds
If you've ever wondered who's in control, you or your cat, a new study points to the obvious. It's your cat.

Household cats exercise this control with a certain type of urgent-sounding, high-pitched meow, according to the findings.

This meow is actually a purr mixed with a high-pitched cry. While people usually think of cat purring as a sign of happiness, some cats make this purr-cry sound when they want to be fed. The study showed that humans find these mixed calls annoying and 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."

They know us

Previous research has shown similarities between cat cries and human infant cries.

McComb suggests that the purr-cry may subtly take advantage of humans' sensitivity to cries they associate with nurturing offspring. Also, including the cry within the purr could make the sound "less harmonic and thus more difficult to habituate to," she said.

McComb got the idea for the study from her experience with her own cat, who would consistently wake her up in the mornings with a very insistent purr. After speaking with other cat owners, she learned that some of their cats also made the same type of call. As a scientist who studies vocal communication in mammals, she decided to investigate the manipulative meow.

Tough to test

Setting up the experiments wasn't easy. While the felines used purr-cries around their familiar owners, they were not eager to make the same cries in front of strangers. So McComb and her team trained cat owners to record their pets' cries - capturing the sounds made by cats when they were seeking food and when they were not. In all, the team collected recordings from 10 different cats.

The researchers then played the cries back for 50 human participants, not all of whom owned cats. They found that humans, even if they had never had a cat themselves, judged the purrs recorded while cats were actively seeking food - the purrs with an embedded, high-pitched cry - as more urgent and less pleasant than those made in other contexts.

When the team re-synthesised the recorded purrs to remove the embedded cry, leaving all else unchanged, the human subjects' 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 be overlooked.

The results were published in the July 14 issue of the journal Current Biology.

My older cat always has thought she was in charge. If I don't respond to her "purring" she starts knocking things off tables, shelves, and desks. She knows how to get her way for sure.

I think dogs have to be thrown in there too! My dog lets me know exactly what he wants and he won't stop till he gets it!

I've always known my cat was in charge. If she's hungry, you're going to get up in the middle of the night and feed her or you're not going to sleep.

Yep, I've always known my cats are in charge, too. Especially the female who thoroughly believes she is a Princess or Queen whilst sitting in her cardboard box or lounging in a paper sack or perched high above all on her indoor cat tree...

My favorite is watching her saunter by the dog, flick him with her tail and then start eating out of his bowl. Or her going into his crate to drink his water. Or her incessant pawing at the bedroom door at 4:30am for breakfast. All these things drive the dog (and me) insane. The boy cat could care less. He just wants to follow you from room to room in hopes you will turn on a faucet.

These video shorts are hysterical. Check out Simon's Cat:
http://www.catnipandcarrots.org/page/funny_tails.htm

Our female definitely will let my wife know when it is time to feed her. My wife waits until around 9 PM to give them their dinner. Usually within 15 minutes either way, the female will start talking to you until you put "fresh" food in the bowl. She also does it whenever we get milk out too.

Then there are the times that the female will want you to pet her, but she will only come about half way. You have to make up the other half. Sometimes, she won't even make it half way.

Not spoiled by ANY means.

Way for me to necropost.

My little cat has it all backwards from you guys. When the bowl is empty, she'll lift it by the lip and drop it to let a nice metal CLANG out. She does it repeatedly until there is food in it, even if she isn't hungry. You think the high pitched meow-purr is bad? How about DING- DLING- DLING.

This is also the reason her water dish is taped to the floor.