This is why cats in our house get fed only when the magic beepy thingy (the alarm clock, set for 7 am and 7 pm) goes off! Argh.
Thanks, Sherman!
- sm
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Cats 'exploit' humans by purring: "Cat owners may have suspected as much, but it seems our feline friends have found a way to manipulate us humans.
Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered that cats use a 'soliciting purr' to overpower their owners and garner attention and food.
Unlike regular purring, this sound incorporates a 'cry', with a similar frequency to a human baby's.
The team said cats have 'tapped into' a human bias - producing a sound that humans find very difficult to ignore."
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3 comments:
Oh pish, and also tush.
Infant kittens have a cry comparable to a baby’s cry quite independently of any relationship with a human being; they use it on their own moms, and on any other cats that happen to be around. Anyone whose cat has had kittens ought to know that this is true. The cry comes naturally to the kitten, and is totally compatible with any feelings of love the kitten happens to have. It needn’t be regarded as merely some callous “manipulation”.
This assertion that the sound is “a way [cats] have found to manipulate us humans”, seems to me to say more about the people who are making the charge than it says about cats. A cat who sounds both loving and needy is very easily explainable as a cat who genuinely is both loving and needy. But here we have researchers who apparently have problems with cats, and so they teach others to think of cats as manipulators.
Marshall, I agree. This kind of science-flavored hooey reminds me of the evopsych reports that keep coming out to remind us that men are rapists and women are withholding whores. I sound vehement because I am a staunch felinist. ;-)
Marshall, I had no idea you had such a soft spot for kitties. ;-)
You raise a good issue -- when bias in science and statistics is not acknowledged, and influences interpretation of results. In this case, the result being identifying that the frequency of a particular purr is close to that of a human infant, and therefore to which humans are genetically programmed to respond.
I will not go on my usual rant here; Amy, if you're the Amy I think you are, you've heard it before.
I'll add that I'm trained in psychology, and "evolutionary psychology" drives me batty.
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