Science Memes

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submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The resemblance to baby vocalizations can be rather unsettling with some cats. I suppose it's somewhat natural since they're about the same size as a newborn human, but specifically adopting somewhat human-like (and thus baby-like, because that's the one they can imitate the best) vocalization doesn't seem that far-fetched.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I mean, I'm not sure cats are out there observing human babies and intentionally imitating them. They have pattern recognition machines in their heads just like we do. "Make noise = human pay attention" is about as complex as this gets. The fact that we're susceptible to the specific timbre of their voices seems likely to be evolutionary coincidence.

[–] jumperalex 18 points 2 days ago

Yes and, you missed the last crucial step

“Make noise = human pay attention” "Human feeds and protects me = more kittens that probably know to pay attention" ... "Profit"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It's likely not a coincidence but something they learnt a looong time ago living among humans.

Here's a study that goes into the frequency thing:

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(09)01168-3