Cats 'exploit' humans by purring

BBC: Cats 'exploit' humans by purring (HT: Victor Claar)

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.

Dr Karen McComb, the lead author of the study that was published in the journal Current Biology, said the research was inspired by her own cat, Pepo.

"He would wake me up in the morning with this insistent purr that was really rather annoying," Dr McComb told BBC News.

"After a little bit of investigation, I discovered that there are other cat owners who are similarly bombarded early in the morning."

While meowing might get a cat expelled from the bedroom, Dr McComb said that this pestering purr often convinced beleaguered pet lovers to get up and fill their cat's bowl.

To find out why, her team had to train cat owners to make recordings of their own cats' vocal tactics - recording both their "soliciting purrs" and regular, "non-soliciting" purrs.

"When we played the recordings to human volunteers, even those people with no experience of cats found the soliciting purrs more urgent and less pleasant," said Dr McComb. ...

Below is a picture of my purring machine (Isaac) and, yes, he has a soliciting purr he uses at 4:00 am.

Comments

[Victor V Claar]

Nicely done!

And here's our furry manipulator (will this start something?):

http://www.hope.edu/academic/economics/claar/Malcolm/Handsome8.JPG

[Michael W. Kruse]

Malcolm is awesome! I love his markings and fur. Most impressive.

[Clark Cowden]

So, now our cats are overwhelming us with their purring? Have they no mercy? Are we really that weak? What a purrfect strategy. Maybe General Assemblies should meow less and purr more.

[Carla Gentry]

The alarm in our house rarely goes off because we get a 6 am visit from our Mookie and Pooh (your Isaac looks a lot like our Pooh). The walk on us and purr until one of us, usually me, gets up to feed them. We are such well trained staff, lol.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Clark

Isaac believes many have been far too DOGmatic at our Assemblies. He suggests we should write a new CATechism on how to live in peace, unity, and purrity.

:-)

[Michael W. Kruse]

Carla

I won't go into all the antics Isaac goes through to get us out of bed ahead of time. As he has learned new tricks, we have at times resorted to keeping a squirt bottle by the bed.

[web development]

I don't like cats and puppies.

[everquest account]

I can't really differentiate cat sounds. My sister has a Persian cat at home and the noise that comes from it are all the same to me.

[Victor V Claar]

Don't know whether it will work for you or not, but the strategy that worked best for us to get Malcolm to "give up" his antics during our bedtime hours was to ignore him completely. We stopped the spoken reprimands, the time-outs, and (yes) the spray bottle.

Sure, our furniture got pretty scratched during that 10 days(!), but eventually he figured out that we were now immune to his antics--no matter how extreme.

He'll still walk around and whine a bit in the morning, once in a while, but that's it. I guess we treated him a bit like our very own, highly lovable, "cat bully"--showed him we didn't care.

Good luck!

[Michael W. Kruse]

I think you're right that ignoring is the best option. An animal behavorist told us once that, unlike dogs, cats don't respond to negative reinforcement. You have to catch them doing the right things and reward them.

Isaac is now 17. I think he has reached an age where if he can't get a rise out of us within a few minutes, he gives up. But every so often he comes up with some new strategy to get our attention.

[Dana Ames]

Our 15-year-old cat walks on me and purrs to be fed if I'm in bed. Otherwise she meows at us: for food, to get brushed, and for "kitty love". My husband does the brushing every morning, and if he is tardy with this duty she will find him and meow at him until he serves. We call her The Empress of the Universe.

Dana

[Michael W. Kruse]

"The Empress of the Universe"

And don't you forget it!