A recent British study has proven what humans have long suspected- domesticated cats are capable of manipulating us, and frequently do. On purpose.
A team of researchers has discovered that our cats have “tapped into” a basic human impulse to nurture and use it to their advantage by combining a pleasant purr with a sound akin to a baby’s cry. The noise, dubbeday, a “soliciting purr,” motivates humans to tend to their feline’s needs more urgently without provoking a GTFO response in humans.
The BBC spoke with the scientist responsible for the study, inspired by her own cat’s behavior:
“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.
Dr. McComb’s findings confirm that not only are cats deliberately using the tactic to pull their humans’ strings, but they deliberately select times that are “anti-social” (like when you’re sleeping or about to wake up) and that they tend to keep their trick under wraps in the presence of others.
Think your cat is guilty? Samples of the purring can be heard here .
