Thursday, November 29, 2012

Why do cats meow?

Usually only domesticated cats meow, whereas wild, feral cats do not. Domesticated cats also don't tend to meow to one another. This suggests that cats meow as a way of communicating with humans.
A domesticated cat meows to get the attention of a human, perhaps because the cat wants food, because it wants to be let outside, or maybe simply because it would like some attention.
In a scientific paper published in 2009, Karen McComb, a professor of animal cognition and behavior at the University of Sussex, suggested that when a cat meows it is taking advantage of a human's natural, nurturing response to the cries of a baby. In other words, cats may have learned to adapt their meows to mimic the cries of a baby, so as to elicit more effectively the attention they desire from their human owners.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/news-blog/the-manipulative-meow-cats-learn-to-2009-07-13/?redirect=1&error=cookies_not_supported&code=dddee74f-4f6c-42d1-8b7d-2ea92dd1ac5a

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