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Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

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Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#61

Post by andrepd »

herodotus wrote: post #21

I have tried to train my two cats with just these words: 1. "Let's go" - morning meal 2. "Upstairs" - I am going to bed 3. "Dinner" (plus clink bowls together) - evening meal 4. "Lie Down" and their names. Emerald, who prefers being upstairs, definitely responds to "Upstairs": she charges upstairs when I say it. Jade remains enigmatic and skeptical: that seems to be her nature. But if she is in the mood for a tummy r…

> For me, the great charm of cats is that it is impossible to tell the difference between "No, I don't understand you." and "I understand you perfectly well, but I plan to ignore you completely until I feel like responding".

Incidentally, this is why I dislike cats so much and prefer dogs :)

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#62

Post by [deleted] »

lngnmn2 wrote: post #14

No. They just associate repeated sounds, without any semantic whatsoever, just like bird songs. Cats do not have the brain circuitry for semantic networks (based on a language concepts) evolved yet. So called language areas are required. How this crap is even got through a peer review? Rithoric question, I know.

[deleted]

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#63

Post by friendly_chap »

My girlfriend and I recently separated. She took one cat, and one stayed with me. During a discussion in her apartment she mentioned the cat that stayed with me by name. Her cat frantically started looking around the apartment to see if his old buddy is there.

Such amazing creatures.

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#64

Post by cmrdporcupine »

bmj wrote: post #20
devmor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In nature, cats form colonies where they take communal care of the young, old and infirm. One of the core behaviors of cats is hunting and providing for colony members who are too weak to do so. Cats being "solitary" animals is largely a misunderstanding of cat behavior towards humans due to cat affection being expressed differently than dog affection.

It's been interesting to see local shelters realize this, and create colony rooms for cats that have been properly socialized. It keeps the cats out of smaller cages, and likely simplifies the care and feeding of the cats in the colony. It's also a great way to pick a few cats to bring home. My local shelter will just let you into the room, and you can hang out and decide which ones (and how many) you'll bring home.

This is how we "chose" our cat. My wife and daughter sat down in the room of kittens and picked the one that came over and started snuggling and playing. It chose us.

She's such a mellow "no f's given" cat. Lives in a house with two border collies and doesn't take any crap from them and lies around totally chill all day long. I suspect this might be due to her socialization at the animal shelter.

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#65

Post by spicybright »

andrepd wrote: post #61
herodotus wrote: post #21

I have tried to train my two cats with just these words: 1. "Let's go" - morning meal 2. "Upstairs" - I am going to bed 3. "Dinner" (plus clink bowls together) - evening meal 4. "Lie Down" and their names. Emerald, who prefers being upstairs, definitely responds to "Upstairs": she charges upstairs when I say it. Jade remains enigmatic and skeptical: that seems to be her nature. But if she is in the mood for a tummy r…

> For me, the great charm of cats is that it is impossible to tell the difference between "No, I don't understand you." and "I understand you perfectly well, but I plan to ignore you completely until I feel like responding". Incidentally, this is why I dislike cats so much and prefer dogs :)

There's a very funny gag in the credits of the movie Inside Out by pixar about cats vs dogs.

https://youtu.be/6DZVnX8bEAs?t=68

(If you've never seen the movie, it's worth a watch!)

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#66

Post by bitwize »

vmception wrote: post #56
bitwize wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has a lot to do with the fact that a cat's meow hits many of the same frequencies as a crying human child.

I’ve read that before, it engages well but I’m not sure they all know what human babies sound like, it just gets a reliable response and other frequencies are either ignored or don’t get then the response they like the most

Yeah, cats don't necessarily know that, they stumble across it by trial and error. We respond to it because we are to some extent hardwired to have our attention grasped by that kind of sound, so we tend to our crying babies.

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#67

Post by bawolff »

idk1 wrote: post #31

I have two cats, one is quite clever and responds to her name, dinner, hop up (for it's ok if you want to sit on my lap) and a few other things. I can ask her to get one of her toys too if she wants the play. She also very rarely meows. The other cat is not so bright, if you ever say anything to him directly he'll only meow back and come over for a pat, that's it. It's just a back and forth screaming match if you tal…

> The other cat is not so bright, if you ever say anything to him directly he'll only meow back and come over for a pat, that's it. It's just a back and forth screaming match if you talk to him.

More pats for less work? Sounds like the smarter one to me.

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#68

Post by LancerSykera »

smcl wrote: post #35

A weird amount of people I knew growing up named their cats just "cat" or "kitten". Every dog had a name (even in households that had a "cat" cat) but not all cats. I wonder if the cats figure their own names out in these cases :)

I grew up in a house of at least a dozen cats. All had names. Our very first one, Lightning (who was seemingly very intelligent and lived to his late teens), did not know his name as Lightning. For all he knew, his name was Puss-Puss, because he had been called that a lot when he was younger, and responded extremely well to it throughout his life.

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#69

Post by hanniabu »

bawolff wrote: post #67
idk1 wrote: post #31

I have two cats, one is quite clever and responds to her name, dinner, hop up (for it's ok if you want to sit on my lap) and a few other things. I can ask her to get one of her toys too if she wants the play. She also very rarely meows. The other cat is not so bright, if you ever say anything to him directly he'll only meow back and come over for a pat, that's it. It's just a back and forth screaming match if you tal…

> The other cat is not so bright, if you ever say anything to him directly he'll only meow back and come over for a pat, that's it. It's just a back and forth screaming match if you talk to him. More pats for less work? Sounds like the smarter one to me.

Yup, one wants to play and the other wants pets

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#70

Post by ntoskrnl »

a_shovel wrote: post #58
ntoskrnl wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched the video and I want to believe, but... I don't know. I have cats, I know cats are intelligent, cats can be trained to understand single words, etc. But I'm just not convinced any cat can string together English sentences like this. Also, the concept of time might be a bit abstract for a cat who is always living in the present moment. And then there's the most viewed video on that channel[1] where he presse…

This one [1] isn't very long, but I think it shows that the cat (Billi) does associate the buttons with a meaning. The owner is playing with Billi with a toy on a string, then drops it on her back. She then quickly (within 10 seconds) presses "No", then "Back", to tell her owner to get the toy off of her back. If she was just pressing buttons to get a reaction, this would be no more likely than "Morning" "Love you",…

That is more compelling, but I'm still not convinced. Out of all the videos I've watched it's the only one that comes close. Smells like broken clock theory to me.

"No" is another higher-level abstract concept that I wouldn't expect anyone to master before more basic concepts. If the cat could say "ears, no" or "tummy, no" with similar confidence, then I would be convinced it understands combining the concept of "no" with another word. And those seem easy to test too. Cats don't like you messing with those areas.

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