2023-09-03 11:00:21
This study was built with the aim of showing how often cats obey optical illusions created in their heads.
Foto: Pexels
Several feline owners have witnessed the same phenomenon: cats have a strong tendency to sit in enclosed spaces, such as boxes, laundry baskets, and etched outlines on the floor.
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With this in mind, a study published in Applied Animal Behavior Science explained how cats not only enjoy sitting on real squares, but also on two-dimensional shapes that just have the appearance of being a real square.
This study was built with the aim of showing how often cats obey optical illusions created in their heads. As Deutsche Welle reports, this illusion is called the Kanizsa square, which consists of four pacman-like shapes that are oriented in such a way that they look like the corners of a square.
This study was built specifically to test the susceptibility cats have to falling for optical illusions, as reported by research co-author Gabriella Smith, who is also a researcher in animal cognition at Hunter College in New York.
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Together with a team of researchers, Smith conducted a citizen science experiment, where several homeowners began to create this illusion using paper and tape, building corners with no sides. Among the shapes included in the study were a regular square with edges, a perfect Kanisza square, and a misshapen square.
For the study, there was a sample of 30 cats, of which nine chose to sit in these shapes continuously. As DW explains, these nine cats decided to sit on the normal square eight times, on Kanizsa’s perfect seven times, and on the deformed one only once. With these results, it was concluded that cats can also fall into the Kanizsa illusion, in a similar way to humans.
Surely you have ever seen your cat inside a cardboard box. The reason for this behavior is because cats like confined places where they can hide, hunt prey, feel safe and warm is instinctive behavior. Cardboard boxes are perfectly suited for this purpose.
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Also, cats like boxes because they help reduce stress and offer a safe area where they can watch and not be seen. Some vets recommend putting boxes in your home so your cat can get rid of stressful situations.
This behavior may also be due to its instinct to hide from predators, as it feels that it cannot be attacked. Therefore, the cat feels that he can see the world around him without being seen. Therefore, if something passes around him, such as prey or a toy, he can jump and get said object and then return to his safe space.
These confined spaces give cats a hiding place when they don’t want to be disturbed, thus reducing their anxiety and can improve their health.
Read: “Ghost dog” causes an impact on networks, but why is it called that?
How do we domesticate cats?
These behaviors are due to the domestication of cats, a process that, according to scientists from the Institute of Archeology of the Nicolaus Copernicus University, in Torun, was done through artificial selection, which involved selecting particular individuals for crossing and reproduction.
This process was discovered following the exploration of archaeological sites in Anatolia, Syria and Israel, where a great variety of stone figures representing these cats were found, dating back more than 9,000 years.
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According to these figures, cats remained from early on near the first human settlements and with a high probability that, during the Neolithic, the first interrelationships between our species and theirs began. It was then that the first humans abandoned nomadism in favor of a sedentary life and began to grow and store food.
According to National Geographic, this attracted numerous rodents of many kinds, thus creating a lure for feral cats, who were presented with a source of numerous and easily available prey, ultimately resulting in in a beneficial society between humans and cats, although with great probability these latter remained quite neutral with respect to people in principle.
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Subsequently, some phenotypic and genetic changes occurred that led cats to continuously cooperate with humans until they created a bond that is still maintained and the typical behaviors of a domestic cat.
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