Cats outperform babies in word association game

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https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2024-12-18/cats-pay-more-attention-to-us-than-we-realize-they-outperform-babies-in-word-association-game.html

Cats pay more attention to us than we realize: They outperform babies in word association game

A new study explores how the domesticated animals are able to rapidly associate words with pictures, but experts warn that this is not the same as linguistic understanding

FACUNDO MACCHI
DEC 18, 2024 - 06:39 EST

Since cats and humans began coexisting 10,000 years ago, these felines have become smaller, their fur has changed color, and, in some cases, their once-antisocial behavior has become more docile. But that’s not all: cats may also pay more attention to humans than we realize, according to a new study published in Scientific Reports. Led by Japanese scientists, the research explored domestic cats’ ability to rapidly form picture-word association, a process central to language acquisition.

In the experiment — originally designed for human babies in the 1990s — 31 cats were placed in front of a computer displaying two pictures: a sun and a unicorn. For nine seconds, the images expanded and contracted on the screen, while a recording played of each cat’s caregiver saying two nonsensical words: “keraru” for unicorn and “parumo” for sun. The cats watched and listened until they became bored, which was indicated by their eye contact with the screen. When they stopped looking at the computer, it signaled that the stimulus was no longer novel.

After a short break, the pictures were shown again four more times, but with the words swapped — “keraru” was paired with the image of the sun, and “parumo” with the unicorn. The cats spent, on average, 33% more time looking at the screen — sometimes in confusion — suggesting that they recognized the mismatch and had formed an association between the word and the image from the first part of the experiment.

Shao Takagi, a cognitive scientist at Azabu University in Japan and the lead author of the study, was surprised to find that “cats, like human babies, could form associations between words and pictures in a very short period of time.” This, according to Takagi, shows that “cats pay attention to what we say in everyday life and try to understand us more than we realize.”

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