学进去

Anyone who’s met a cat knows that cats are extremely difficult to keep track of. Once one of my cats disappeared somewhere in the house, hiding while I fruitlessly tore the place apart with the fear that it might have got outside. After some period of time, he just... reappeared. We’ll never beat a cat in a hide-and-seek game, because cats have such sensitive ears that enable them to track their owners’ whereabouts (所在之处).

That has been proved by a new study led by Saho Takagi, a doctoral student at Kyoto University. They did an experiment at a cat cafe with home setting to observe how cats reacted to their owners’ voices — without visual signals — when hearing their owners saying their names from speakers (扬声器). The researchers placed the speakers apart from each other, out of the cats’ sight, to see how the cats would respond to the sounds, especially if the owner’s voice appeared to “transport” from one location to another. The cats’ behaviors, especially their ear and head movements, would be carefully observed.

The researchers found that the cats were very surprised when their owners seemed to transport from one corner of the café to another. The results showed that cats have clear understanding of the relationship between space and sound, meaning they can mentally picture where others are through sound signals: “It is generally believed that cats are not as interested in their owners as dogs are, but it turns out that they just react differently. When hearing their owners’ voice, they are mentally picturing the invisible presence of their owners. This is an ability that is the basis of creativity and imagination,” Takagi said. “Cats have an unbelievable mind.”

“Cats seem to spend most of their time sleeping, but they may be thinking about many things, not just sleeping,” Takagi added. Our furry friends hear more — and think more — than we give them credit for. But whether they choose to listen to you or not is a different story.