cats - and animal psychology
This is a non diaper post, and hence for some of you more interesting, and others less so.
Cats
Well actually it is probably all pets, but in particular cats, and their names. Mag and I have a cat called Zebulon, after the character in the Zebulon and Polux (french) cartoon. Now, our cat answers to his name. However, he doesn’t have just one name, he probably has about 20 or so depending on what we are feeling like, or what he has just got upto.
He has learned that a name like Zebycat is generally good, and will almost always be for a cuddle. Something short like Zebs is for food, or that when we call Zebulon its because he’s doing something that he shouldn’t.
Now, both Mags and I are reasonably intelligent, or rather, that should be we have certificates to say we are. These are, for obvious reasons not one and the same thing. And we have debated many times whether this is a real phenomenon, or it is just us being biased towards thinking our cat is more intelligent than the average. Instinctivly I think that it is just the cat picking up on a number of factors, such as ‘humans just arrived home, I’m hungry and its food time, so therefore they are calling me for food’; or, perhaps ‘I know I shouldn’t be digging in the plant pot and I ought to run away’ more of a response to the tone / manner /environment. However Magali disagrees. She thinks that its like pavlovian anction. We call him one way and feed him, and eventually he will know that when we call him using a particular name that it is for food and so on.
Now, doing a medline search as to what the scientists know, didn’t bring much luck. So is it observation or a learned pavlovian response?
Anybody got a clue?
Cats
Well actually it is probably all pets, but in particular cats, and their names. Mag and I have a cat called Zebulon, after the character in the Zebulon and Polux (french) cartoon. Now, our cat answers to his name. However, he doesn’t have just one name, he probably has about 20 or so depending on what we are feeling like, or what he has just got upto.
He has learned that a name like Zebycat is generally good, and will almost always be for a cuddle. Something short like Zebs is for food, or that when we call Zebulon its because he’s doing something that he shouldn’t.
Now, both Mags and I are reasonably intelligent, or rather, that should be we have certificates to say we are. These are, for obvious reasons not one and the same thing. And we have debated many times whether this is a real phenomenon, or it is just us being biased towards thinking our cat is more intelligent than the average. Instinctivly I think that it is just the cat picking up on a number of factors, such as ‘humans just arrived home, I’m hungry and its food time, so therefore they are calling me for food’; or, perhaps ‘I know I shouldn’t be digging in the plant pot and I ought to run away’ more of a response to the tone / manner /environment. However Magali disagrees. She thinks that its like pavlovian anction. We call him one way and feed him, and eventually he will know that when we call him using a particular name that it is for food and so on.
Now, doing a medline search as to what the scientists know, didn’t bring much luck. So is it observation or a learned pavlovian response?
Anybody got a clue?