Cats use physical knowledge to hunt

Research by scientists at Kyoto University (Japan) shows that cats have the ability to understand and apply the cause-effect principle to find the location of the prey hiding.

A new Japanese study shows that cats also have a basic concept of physical laws and the cause-effect principle . The animal's sharp senses, along with the application of basic physical concepts, make them easier to hunt.

In the study, scientists want to find out if cats can guess the presence of an invisible object in the box based on the sound generated when the box vibrates and whether they expect an object to fall. when the box is turned over?

Thanks to physical "good study", predatory cats are more effective.(Photo: Warrenphotographic).

To answer these questions, Saho Takagi scientist did experiments with 30 domestic cats in two scenarios. The first scenario: The falling boxes have a shaking sound with objects falling out, and the falling boxes without vibrating sounds do not have objects falling off (comply with physical principles). The second scenario: The falling boxes have a shaking sound, and no falling objects and falling boxes without vibrations are dropped (not following physical principles).

As a result, cats tend to stare at the box that emits a vibrating sound, meaning they accurately predict the presence of an audio-based object in the box. They also look longer on the box when there are unexpected results contrary to the laws of physics.

Takagi explained: "These cats have used a logical understanding of the cause - the result of noise or sound when predicting the presence of unseen objects".

Researchers believe that the habitat of species may affect their ability to understand information based on the sounds they hear, meaning that the animal's instinctive hunting can reflect. audio-based reasoning ability.

Cats often hunt at night, visibility is limited. Therefore, they often have to deduce the position of sound-based prey.

Takagi and colleagues added: "Cats' prey can show their reasoning ability based on the sound of prey coming out." The study was published in the journal Animal Cognition on June 14.