Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: it's cat a clock here on Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be doing cats today, that's right. Uh. Particularly,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about cats sitting in boxes, being
Speaker 1: interested in boxes, and we'll get a little bit into
Speaker 1: into humans sitting and sleeping in boxes as well. So
Speaker 1: let's start by pointing out the obvious here, and that
Speaker 1: is that cats love a good box. We don't have
Speaker 1: to tell you this. Cat owners or just Internet users
Speaker 1: out there are probably familiar with this scenario, often summed
Speaker 1: up with the MIMI headline or caption If I fits,
Speaker 1: I sits. If the cat at all fits in the box,
Speaker 1: then it will sit in the box. Even if the
Speaker 1: cat doesn't quite fit in the box, you know, the
Speaker 1: cat will. A cat will often uh take the occasion
Speaker 1: to create a sort of muffin top of its entire
Speaker 1: body around the lip of a somewhat too small box
Speaker 1: for it. Yeah, there's some hilarious pictures of this online. Um.
Speaker 1: Now for my own partic I can mainly speak to
Speaker 1: my cat, or well, the cat that lives in my house, Mochy.
Speaker 1: She I don't know if she's my cat. She's kind
Speaker 1: of her own self cat. And um, you're her feeder.
Speaker 1: I feed her and I clean up her poop desert
Speaker 1: and as as a thank you, she attacks my feet
Speaker 1: regularly and wakes me up between the hours of four
Speaker 1: am and six am demanding to be fit. Uh. But
Speaker 1: and she likes my wife a lot more than me.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I'm still moch is good. I love her.
Speaker 1: Moch is a good cat. She's amusing, she's cute. And
Speaker 1: whenever we get a package in, we'll give her the
Speaker 1: chance to check out that box. So we'll put it
Speaker 1: there on the floor. Four She doesn't always sit inside it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes she'll just come out and check it out. If
Speaker 1: we put it on its side, she may walk inside it.
Speaker 1: Maybe she'll slit down, maybe she won't, Maybe she'll hang out.
Speaker 1: It's totally up to her. I've often thought about the
Speaker 1: conflict that must go on within the mind of a
Speaker 1: cat when it is confronted with its carrier crate, you
Speaker 1: know the box that people you. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: we would take our cat to the vet, not in
Speaker 1: a not in like one of those nice crates that
Speaker 1: has like the cage door and all that. But it
Speaker 1: was a cardboard box that had like fold up handles
Speaker 1: and breathing holes and stuff like. It was made for
Speaker 1: a cat to go in it. Yes, it was like
Speaker 1: a cardboard box specifically manufactured for cat delivery. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: we never never had one of those. Uh we we
Speaker 1: have just a plastic and metal cat carrier. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a totally different enclosure for for a cat that
Speaker 1: is often associated with the stress of going other places, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what I was thinking about though, is that,
Speaker 1: like there there there are two different things pulling in
Speaker 1: the mind at the same time. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: you've got the learned associations like, oh that thing means
Speaker 1: the vet. That's bad. But still it's still a box.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it looks pretty good in there. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Mochi does not go for the for the
Speaker 1: cat carrier. She she has negative associations there, but but
Speaker 1: you know, she'll she'll definitely go and she at least
Speaker 1: check out a shipping container that has come in um
Speaker 1: And also we have shelves in our home that are
Speaker 1: roughly cube shaped have cube shaped spaces in them, and
Speaker 1: some of these are filled up with books or or
Speaker 1: have like a drawer put in them. But we also
Speaker 1: have some at ground at a floor level in the
Speaker 1: house that have other things in them, like one have
Speaker 1: shoes uh and he's used as a shoe hutch, and
Speaker 1: other has a trio of decorative statues in them. And
Speaker 1: Mochi loves darting into these spaces, um, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of plotting from within them. And of course she'll move
Speaker 1: the statues around whenever she's in there, so we frequently
Speaker 1: have to put the statues back where they go. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I can imagine being jealous of the inanimate objects that
Speaker 1: get their own little beholes. Yeah, or I mean, I
Speaker 1: think a huge part of this. So there are two
Speaker 1: things right. First of all, a cat, of domestic cat
Speaker 1: is essentially both predator and prey. So they have this
Speaker 1: relationship with the world where they are that you know,
Speaker 1: they need to find hiding places so as to stalk
Speaker 1: their prey and to engage in these sort of behaviors
Speaker 1: that they've evolved to uh uh to do. Or the
Speaker 1: other side is they need to be able to hide themselves.
Speaker 1: They need to be wary of things that might be
Speaker 1: after them. And then on top of all of that,
Speaker 1: if you have an indoor cat like Mochi is an
Speaker 1: indoor cat um, they live in a confined environment that
Speaker 1: they and they ultimately belong in a wider world. They
Speaker 1: shouldn't go out there. She should not go out there.
Speaker 1: She's not ready for it. There's too much, uh, there's
Speaker 1: too much out there to freak her out. And also
Speaker 1: that she's gonna eat birds, she's an invasive species. All
Speaker 1: of that. So she is where she is, but it
Speaker 1: kind of makes them a little stir crazy, I think,
Speaker 1: you know. So they have to make the most out
Speaker 1: of the space they have. And so if there is
Speaker 1: a space and a shelf for a new box, they're
Speaker 1: gonna go check it out, just like you would check
Speaker 1: it out if you had not left the house in
Speaker 1: you know, five years, except maybe to a facility where
Speaker 1: I get punctured with needles. Yes, yeah, you know it.
Speaker 1: Get create. That's your universe, you know. And and and and
Speaker 1: so you can maybe understand some of these behaviors. But
Speaker 1: then there there are other aspects of of cat fascination
Speaker 1: with with new items that that I've I've found intriguing.
Speaker 1: So this cat of ours, Mochi, also loves, and I
Speaker 1: mean loves, a new set of Lego or Ikea instructions.
Speaker 1: If these rectangular papers are introduced into the house and
Speaker 1: for any amount of time and she sees them, she
Speaker 1: will set on them. She will go up and she
Speaker 1: will she will have a seat on them. She may
Speaker 1: sleep on them. Likewise, if they are print outs from
Speaker 1: the computer, if the boy leaves his homework out, then
Speaker 1: the cat will inevitably sleep on that the on that paperwork.
Speaker 1: We've had some very important paperwork in the house that
Speaker 1: has been left out in the cat will then decide
Speaker 1: to sleep on it. I feel like this is not
Speaker 1: confined just two cats. It may be more prevalent in cats,
Speaker 1: but I've noticed in my dog he loves to if
Speaker 1: we put out a set of instructions on the floor,
Speaker 1: or any kind of roughly rectangular shaped flat thing on
Speaker 1: the floor, there's a real good chance he will move
Speaker 1: on top of it. Which is weird with with animals, right,
Speaker 1: our pet animals, because for the most part, I mean,
Speaker 1: they're not supposed that they're technically not supposed to be
Speaker 1: able to go everywhere generally there are places I don't
Speaker 1: want my cat delay and walk, but if people are
Speaker 1: out of the house, yeah, she can kind of go
Speaker 1: wherever she wants. And yet it's going to be the
Speaker 1: I kea instruction manual, it's going to be the Lego
Speaker 1: manual or some paperwork. Well, this was actually taken to
Speaker 1: another level of absurdity by something that connects to some
Speaker 1: of the articles we're going to talk about today, which
Speaker 1: was a viral hashtag on Twitter called hashtag cat squares.
Speaker 1: Did you read about this at the time, Um, I
Speaker 1: don't think I saw it at the time, but I've
Speaker 1: I've been catching up on it. Yeah, I I don't
Speaker 1: remember being aware of this either. But essentially what it
Speaker 1: was was people were posting on Twitter photos where they
Speaker 1: would get some tape, just like you know, some painter's
Speaker 1: tape or something, and lay it down on the floor
Speaker 1: to make a square, and then their cat would come
Speaker 1: over and sit inside the square. Why strange. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's something clearly interesting going on with this behavior, and
Speaker 1: it seems I mean, with with stuff like this that's
Speaker 1: just anecdotal observations. You always wonder if there's some amount
Speaker 1: of just coincidence. The cats just sitting somewhere, or maybe
Speaker 1: it's just sitting where you happen to be looking. You know,
Speaker 1: it's taking cues from you. But it at least seemed
Speaker 1: consistent enough that people were saying, like, yeah, cats sit
Speaker 1: down on pieces of paper or instructions or squares of
Speaker 1: other kinds, and even if you just make a square
Speaker 1: outline out of tape, they'll come get into that. It
Speaker 1: seemed consistent enough that this is maybe a scientific phenomenon
Speaker 1: worth investigating. And so this is gonna connect to at
Speaker 1: least one piece of research that we'll talk about in
Speaker 1: today's episode. Hat tip that I first got the idea
Speaker 1: to do this episode today when I came across a
Speaker 1: piece by Jennifer will Let in Ours Technica that was
Speaker 1: covering this recent study that used crowdsourced participation to test
Speaker 1: visual perception and sitting behavior and cats. Will come back
Speaker 1: to that specific study in a bit, but first I
Speaker 1: wanted to move backward a bit and look at the
Speaker 1: thing that we started talking about, which was the idea
Speaker 1: of cats being obsessed with getting inside boxes, not squares
Speaker 1: on the floor, but three dimensional boxes. As to the
Speaker 1: question of why they love boxes so much, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of answers you can find out there, and
Speaker 1: I think this is something I encounter a lot when
Speaker 1: I look into a question of like why is my
Speaker 1: dog doing X? Or why does a cat do X?
Speaker 1: Basically anything within the realm of explaining the behavior of
Speaker 1: common domestic animals. You can usually find a lot of
Speaker 1: veterinary science animal behavior experts of varying levels of legitimacy
Speaker 1: and their credentials, offering their opinion, but often nothing quite
Speaker 1: like a solid scientific consensus answer that's provable by experiment.
Speaker 1: But you can find some some good evidence that helps
Speaker 1: back up a few competing explanations that might be complementary
Speaker 1: of one another or might feed different aspects of box
Speaker 1: occupation behaviors. Now, one very commonly cited answer is simply
Speaker 1: that cats like boxes because cats are cryptic animals. They
Speaker 1: like to hide. And this has to do with a
Speaker 1: couple of things, both with perceptions of safety and with
Speaker 1: predatory advantage. Yeah, like I said, they are both predator
Speaker 1: and prey, and therefore it behooves them to be good
Speaker 1: at hiding, to have hiding places scouted out, and to
Speaker 1: hang out in them from time to time. Right, And
Speaker 1: so one example of a cat behavior expert talking about
Speaker 1: this that I came across was there's a guy named
Speaker 1: Steven Zawistowski of the s p c A who didn't
Speaker 1: explain or video about this for Business Insider in and
Speaker 1: I've seen that one quoted a bunch of times in
Speaker 1: other outlets, and his claims are basically that cats like
Speaker 1: to hide, and a box gives them a sense of
Speaker 1: safety and security because once they get into the box,
Speaker 1: they limit the number of angles that they can be
Speaker 1: approached from. You know, you're basically like limiting the amount
Speaker 1: of space you need to be constantly aware of that
Speaker 1: you need to be monitoring. And this seems like a
Speaker 1: very reasonable guest to me, at least for part of
Speaker 1: the explanation. I would actually guess a similar psychological drive
Speaker 1: probably underlies a lot of human behaviors. For example, the
Speaker 1: desire to sit with your back to a wall as
Speaker 1: opposed to sitting in the middle of the room. What's
Speaker 1: the table everybody wants at a restaurant? You you know,
Speaker 1: almost everybody prefers the booth in the back corner of
Speaker 1: the room as opposed to the table that's right in
Speaker 1: the middle of the room where you know, there's stuff
Speaker 1: going on behind your back. Yeah, it feels safer and
Speaker 1: feels like you're you're just less likely to be surprised.
Speaker 1: Even if you're not really worried about physical danger, there's
Speaker 1: something kind of happening at an instinctual level. A part
Speaker 1: of it might even not be concerns about physical danger,
Speaker 1: but concerns about social surprise and social threats, you know,
Speaker 1: things that you would need to be aware of if
Speaker 1: they were happening, even if they're not physically threatening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you might want to know who else is
Speaker 1: coming into the restaurant, or you know, you want to
Speaker 1: be able to see when your server is approaching that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. You just wanted a general awareness of
Speaker 1: your surroundings. And if you've got your back to a wall,
Speaker 1: you're sort of wedged into a corner and all snug
Speaker 1: and cozy, you can basically see anybody who's going to
Speaker 1: approach you. But Zawistowski also says that boxes provide a
Speaker 1: vantage point from which cats can dash out an attack,
Speaker 1: and this connects to the other prong of what you
Speaker 1: were saying about them being both predator and prey. You
Speaker 1: know that it is good if you're a predator to
Speaker 1: have a sort of information advantage on your prey. You
Speaker 1: want to be hidden from them. You want to be
Speaker 1: able to see them, but them not be able to
Speaker 1: see you, and a hiding place like a box is
Speaker 1: perfect for that. Now, I will say this seems potentially
Speaker 1: true as an explanation of some boxes, but not all,
Speaker 1: because I noticed that a lot of times cats seem
Speaker 1: to really enjoy squeezing into small boxes that are, for example,
Speaker 1: only open on the top, so they can't really see
Speaker 1: anything around them. They couldn't possibly be watching something that
Speaker 1: they would you know, lunge out at because they can
Speaker 1: only see the ceiling or something like that. Am I
Speaker 1: wrong about this? Now? You you know, you definitely see
Speaker 1: this as well. Our cat likes to venture into the
Speaker 1: laundry hamper pretty regularly, and and uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: guess I should also point out that that our cat,
Speaker 1: like a lot of cats, uses a litter box that
Speaker 1: you enter from the top, so it's essentially like a hamper,
Speaker 1: uh for of for for the litter um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess in thinking about this, because certainly if the
Speaker 1: cat is at the bottom of the Andrey hamper, she's
Speaker 1: not really able to see anything anymore. But I guess
Speaker 1: one thing we always have to keep in mind with
Speaker 1: cats is that they do have extremely acute hearing. So
Speaker 1: that's true. Um, you know, they're their dependence on the
Speaker 1: visual world is not the same as human dependence on
Speaker 1: the visual world. That's a good point. Have you ever
Speaker 1: seen Mochi spring out of the top of a box,
Speaker 1: even at something that that she couldn't immediately see? M m,
Speaker 1: not not really, but she does, you know, she will
Speaker 1: spring out of the box. I guess that's another thing
Speaker 1: to keep in mind is that cats are are are
Speaker 1: generally quite agile as well, so uh, leaving the bottom
Speaker 1: of the hamper is not the same as us emerging
Speaker 1: from the bottom of a well, you know, like we
Speaker 1: would have to painstakingly claw our way back up. The
Speaker 1: cat can just launch itself out like a rocket and
Speaker 1: it's good to go. Yes, So, well, I would not
Speaker 1: consider this explanation. I don't know proven. I guess it
Speaker 1: seems like this is a very reasonable guess understanding the
Speaker 1: cat role in its native environment and uh, and the
Speaker 1: normal kinds of environmental pressures that would be on it
Speaker 1: and how it would respond to them. That cats like
Speaker 1: hiding places because as you say, they're both predator and prey,
Speaker 1: they need a place that you know, limits the angles
Speaker 1: they can be approached from and to to provide a
Speaker 1: sense of security and safety for them and provides them
Speaker 1: advantage point that they could potentially use to launch a
Speaker 1: predatory attack from. So this all seems like a reasonable
Speaker 1: gas s barring other evidence. But I did find some
Speaker 1: more evidence for the enclosure security hypothesis that was documented
Speaker 1: in another article that I was reading. So there was
Speaker 1: an article by Brian Gardner in Wired in called why
Speaker 1: do Cats Love Boxes So Much? And this pulled together
Speaker 1: some other studies. So the author here, for one thing,
Speaker 1: spoke to a researcher named Claudia Vinky of you trek
Speaker 1: To University in the Netherlands, who has published scientific research
Speaker 1: on the effects of access to a box on the
Speaker 1: stress levels of cats in animal shelters. This research was
Speaker 1: done in conjunction, so Vinky was the lead author, but
Speaker 1: it was also done with L. M. Godein and UH
Speaker 1: W J. R. Vander Lye in Applied Animal Behavior Science
Speaker 1: in and this study points out that stress in shelter animals,
Speaker 1: including cats, is important for a number of reasons. Of course,
Speaker 1: It's just important on its own for the psychological welfare
Speaker 1: of the cat. But stress is also an important factor
Speaker 1: contributing to the physical health of animals like cats, because
Speaker 1: higher levels of stress and animals could contribute to higher
Speaker 1: rates of infectious disease due to immuno deficiency from the
Speaker 1: cortisol response. Yeah. And I think anybody who's owned cats
Speaker 1: for any amount of time, you you grow to realize that,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, did they get stressed out? They can, They
Speaker 1: can definitely get get ill. Um, particularly with ours like
Speaker 1: she has bladder issues, uh, and easily um compound by
Speaker 1: her not drinking enough water or being just a little
Speaker 1: bit too stressed. And then if and if that happens,
Speaker 1: then then everybody in the house is stressed. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I I can imagine. I feel for everybody in that scenario. Um.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so the authors here right. The aim of
Speaker 1: the present study was to determine the effect of a
Speaker 1: hiding box on stress levels of newly arrived cats in
Speaker 1: a Dutch animal shelter. Therefore, nineteen newly arrived shelter cats
Speaker 1: were randomly divided into two groups. So the test group
Speaker 1: had ten cats and they had access to a box
Speaker 1: and then there was a control group of nine without
Speaker 1: a hiding box, and to determine the stress levels, they
Speaker 1: would do these observational or behavioral observations over a fourteen
Speaker 1: day period that we're done according to something called the
Speaker 1: Kessler and Turner cat stress score. Now, the authors point
Speaker 1: out that there are some limitations here because you the
Speaker 1: the cats, uh stress score. Thing they're doing here is
Speaker 1: just based on how having to observe the cat and
Speaker 1: sort of count numbers of behaviors that would indicate or
Speaker 1: believed to indicate certain levels of relaxation or stress response.
Speaker 1: That you could probably get more accurate information about stress
Speaker 1: responses by physiological measurements, like you know, maybe measuring levels
Speaker 1: of cortisol in the body or something like that. Though
Speaker 1: the problem there is that in order to do that,
Speaker 1: you would have to handle already stressed cats, which would itself,
Speaker 1: uh sort of probably increase the amount of stress that
Speaker 1: the cats are experiencing. So this is kind of a
Speaker 1: difficult thing to measure accurately. But they did their best
Speaker 1: with this observational behavioral scoring system. And this was taking
Speaker 1: place during the cage quarantine period for incoming cats, so
Speaker 1: they have to go through a quarantine period, you know,
Speaker 1: as they're taken into the shelter, And the major findings
Speaker 1: of this research where the cats in the test group,
Speaker 1: so those were the cats with access to a hiding box,
Speaker 1: showed less stress pretty quickly within the first couple of days,
Speaker 1: with significant differences in the amount of stress between the
Speaker 1: test group and the control group on days three and four.
Speaker 1: But eventually, over time the stress levels of the cats
Speaker 1: in the control group came down. It just took a
Speaker 1: lot longer, So by day fourteen, the cats in both
Speaker 1: groups were roughly the same in terms of stress. So
Speaker 1: it looks like what happened is access to a hiding
Speaker 1: box helped lower the stress of cats faster in a
Speaker 1: frightening novel situation, but after a couple of weeks it
Speaker 1: was no longer making a difference on average. But this
Speaker 1: would kind of make sense if you imagine that the cats,
Speaker 1: you know, when you first get to a new shelter,
Speaker 1: that's probably the highest stress as they're like becoming accustomed
Speaker 1: to this novel situation. So they're going to have the
Speaker 1: most stress then and the most need for coping behaviors,
Speaker 1: for example hiding in a box. And the authors pointed
Speaker 1: out that even when the cats didn't have access to
Speaker 1: a box, say, the cats in the control group would
Speaker 1: sometimes try to do hiding behaviors without a box. For example,
Speaker 1: they would try to hide behind their litter box. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think anybody who has if you've ever gotten a
Speaker 1: new cat or or brought a cat into a new environment,
Speaker 1: this is frequently what happens. Like the cat and they
Speaker 1: spend the first few days or or even longer just
Speaker 1: hanging out in like one particular hiding spot, say in
Speaker 1: a you know, in a closet or something like that,
Speaker 1: and the author is also uh. They cite a study
Speaker 1: by cry and Casey in the journal Animal Welfare from
Speaker 1: two thousand seven that found basically the same thing. It
Speaker 1: found that access to a hiding box decreased the amount
Speaker 1: of apparent stress behaviors in cats at a at an
Speaker 1: adoption center and did not make adoption any less likely.
Speaker 1: I think one thing they were wondering about is, okay,
Speaker 1: does if you give a cat a hiding space, will
Speaker 1: that make the cat less social and thus make it
Speaker 1: less likely to get adopted? And they found no um.
Speaker 1: Cats that were that had access to a hiding space
Speaker 1: were no less likely to get adopted, and they seem
Speaker 1: to be less stressed. So hiding spaces for cats are
Speaker 1: are good, it seems all around. But in that Wired
Speaker 1: article by Gardener, UH, he cites an email exchange that
Speaker 1: he had with Claudiavinki, the author of that that first
Speaker 1: Dutch study UH, and she says that quote, hiding is
Speaker 1: a behavioral strategy of the species to cope with environmental
Speaker 1: changes and stressors. So new stuff is going on, you
Speaker 1: don't know how to deal with it. It's it's freaking
Speaker 1: you out. How do you react? You go and hide
Speaker 1: and if you have a box, that's going to really
Speaker 1: help chill you out. Thank you, thank you. Now. There
Speaker 1: is an interesting other observation that Gardner dug up in
Speaker 1: this article, another line of reasoning that seems a little
Speaker 1: bit related but actually different. So he cites the Cambridge
Speaker 1: University Press guide to the Domestic Cat, The Biology of
Speaker 1: its Behavior, that's the title, UH, and this book observes
Speaker 1: that quote cats do not appear to develop conflict resolution
Speaker 1: strategies to the extent that more gregarious species do. So
Speaker 1: they may attempt to circumvent agonistic encounters by avoiding others
Speaker 1: or dec reasing their activity so that that's an interesting
Speaker 1: sort of twist on this right, that the the retreat
Speaker 1: to a box for a cat maybe not only a
Speaker 1: safety mechanism like fearing physical danger, but also a social behavior,
Speaker 1: a way of managing social relationships by avoiding potential conflict
Speaker 1: with other members of the household or social group. So,
Speaker 1: you know, a dog might have certain conflict resolution behaviors.
Speaker 1: You know, it gets into a conflict or has unresolved
Speaker 1: kind of social tension with another dog or another human
Speaker 1: in the house, and and it has its own set
Speaker 1: of behaviors who knows what. You know, those might be uh,
Speaker 1: you know, licking or whatever, or a certain kind of
Speaker 1: like display of like like a kind of submissive display
Speaker 1: or something like that. Cats, meanwhile, are more likely to
Speaker 1: if they're looking for a way to deal with unresolved
Speaker 1: social tension or something within the group, they might just retreat.
Speaker 1: They go and hide and and just practice avoidance behaviors.
Speaker 1: And that's interesting because I think sometimes these concerns that
Speaker 1: the concerns for for safety versus the concern for avoiding
Speaker 1: social conflict, those can get kind of conflated even when
Speaker 1: humans think about their own behavior, But they're actually distinct phenomena,
Speaker 1: like when we were talking about why do you want
Speaker 1: to sit at the back of the restaurant? You can
Speaker 1: easily start thinking about that in terms of safety, which
Speaker 1: might be an element there, but there could also just
Speaker 1: be like a social reasoning to it. Yeah, like to
Speaker 1: to apply this as we've applied similar discussions in the
Speaker 1: past to the open office working environment. Like, I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the huge flaws of that is that
Speaker 1: you know, you can say, well, it's about it's about
Speaker 1: coworkers being able to approach each other and and share
Speaker 1: ideas and all and all and so forth, but it
Speaker 1: also means, uh, if someone walks into the office, like
Speaker 1: they can see you and you have to see them, Like,
Speaker 1: there's no like cats would hate that. Cats would be
Speaker 1: totally anti office. Of course, they would want a cubicle.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, I you know, I guess that
Speaker 1: a lot of it comes down to different work styles,
Speaker 1: different personnel, the styles. But I'm with the cats on this.
Speaker 1: Let us have our boxes. Oh me too. I mean
Speaker 1: not to be antisocial, you know, I like being able
Speaker 1: to work with my coworkers when it's useful to work together,
Speaker 1: but like, you know, when when I don't want to
Speaker 1: be doing that. I don't want that as it just
Speaker 1: a constant sort of like interaction threat presenting at a
Speaker 1: low level all day long. Yeah, I I don't want
Speaker 1: my workspace to be like, you know, the the doggy
Speaker 1: daycare center, where it's just dogs running around in circles
Speaker 1: the whole time. You know. I like the idea that
Speaker 1: being cats, uh you know, engaging with each other when
Speaker 1: they want to, setting in laps or you know, laying
Speaker 1: in the sun when they want to, but also retreating
Speaker 1: to boxes when that is their preference. Here's the way
Speaker 1: I think of it. I'm not against interacting with other
Speaker 1: other people. I don't think I'm antisocial, but I'd like
Speaker 1: to be able to flip a switch. I'd like to
Speaker 1: be able to flip the interaction switch on and flip
Speaker 1: it off, as opposed to having it in some ambiguous
Speaker 1: middle space. But so, while all of this stuff that
Speaker 1: we're talking about makes sense, the idea of of cats
Speaker 1: having lower stre us when they have a space they
Speaker 1: can hide in for obvious safety reasons, but then also
Speaker 1: for maybe these uh these social interaction mediation reasons. Um,
Speaker 1: this brings me back to a question I think I
Speaker 1: sort of raised earlier. I guess this is a slightly
Speaker 1: different version of it. I can easily think of examples
Speaker 1: of cats getting into boxes that don't really fit the
Speaker 1: hiding safety or avoidance hypotheses. Sometimes the cat is clearly
Speaker 1: not hiding at all, for example, when cats cram into
Speaker 1: boxes with low walls that function more as a kind
Speaker 1: of tray for the cat's body than walls that would
Speaker 1: offer any form of concealment. And these are some of
Speaker 1: the funniest examples of cats getting into boxes, but clearly
Speaker 1: lots of cats love to do this. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a fun board game called Isle of Cats that's
Speaker 1: all about cats and like doing some sort of like
Speaker 1: tetrisy things with cats. It's a beautifully designed game, and
Speaker 1: when you open the box, the interior of the top
Speaker 1: lid informs you the this is where your cat can
Speaker 1: sit while you play the game, and they encourage you, like,
Speaker 1: you know, to take photos of and share it, which
Speaker 1: is which is a really fun idea, but it's also yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not. It's not deep enough for a cat to
Speaker 1: actually gain any kind of me perceivable at least a
Speaker 1: human shelter or you know, or you know, a space
Speaker 1: from which to to hunt their their humans feet or
Speaker 1: you know, so forth. It's it's just too shallow. It
Speaker 1: seems like it would not provide the sort of cover
Speaker 1: that they would be craving exactly. So I think this
Speaker 1: is where it comes in that there are probably different
Speaker 1: pressures that are that are complementary of one another and
Speaker 1: driving cat box occupation behaviors. Cats probably occupy different boxes
Speaker 1: for different reasons. And when a cat occupies this tray
Speaker 1: kind of box, you know, the kind of tight squeeze box,
Speaker 1: I suspect, and this is something that's offered up in
Speaker 1: Gardeners article as well, that a lot of this probably
Speaker 1: has to do with temperature. So I notice a claim
Speaker 1: that was cited in that Vinky study, the Dutch cat
Speaker 1: shelter study, and it was that the author's cited previous
Speaker 1: research by roy In that was getting sited in rochlets
Speaker 1: and that showed that cats prefer material that maintains the
Speaker 1: same temperature, with the quintessential example here being a towel.
Speaker 1: You put a towel on the floor, cat will probably
Speaker 1: prefer to get on the towel as opposed to the
Speaker 1: floor itself or other materials. That are less stable in
Speaker 1: terms of temperature and uh and so I think cats
Speaker 1: and I would guess dogs to find less temperature variability
Speaker 1: in insulated materials like a towel or like the corrugated
Speaker 1: cardboard that makes up many boxes. And this is building on,
Speaker 1: of course, the fact that animals have a a natural
Speaker 1: biological environmental constraint known as their therm neutral zone. Easy
Speaker 1: way to think about this, it's basically the range of
Speaker 1: temperatures in which you are comfortable due to your biology
Speaker 1: uh and and the reason you're comfortable within a certain
Speaker 1: range of temperatures is that your body is having to
Speaker 1: do less work to adapt you to that, you know,
Speaker 1: because you need to maintain a relatively constant internal body temperature.
Speaker 1: And if you and if the range of external temperatures
Speaker 1: is outside of the thermonutral zone, then your body is
Speaker 1: going to need to be spending extra energy either heating
Speaker 1: or cooling itself in order to keep your internal temperature
Speaker 1: uh in the study zone that it needs to be.
Speaker 1: According to Gardener, and this was news to me, the
Speaker 1: thermo neutral zone for a domestic cat is roughly eighty
Speaker 1: six to ninety seven degrees fahrenheit and is the source there.
Speaker 1: He cites a two thousand six study by the National
Speaker 1: Research Council. And so if you think about that, that's
Speaker 1: roughly like twenty degrees higher than the normal therm neutral
Speaker 1: zone for human beings, which is, you know, going to
Speaker 1: be somewhere in like the low seventies or something. Is
Speaker 1: but the temperature that most people most often feel very
Speaker 1: comfortable in. Yeah, I mean this, this is a huge
Speaker 1: reason why cats frequently want to sit in your lap,
Speaker 1: you know, because your lap is warm. It's it's kind
Speaker 1: of the perfect combination of the two because of the
Speaker 1: underlying body heat. But then on top of that, you know,
Speaker 1: you generally have you know, some sort of slacks or
Speaker 1: jeans or some sort of garment going on, and that
Speaker 1: is where they want to be, especially when uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the ambient temperature is is far less than that that
Speaker 1: desired zone. Yeah, so I think about how how much
Speaker 1: you know, cats I've had in my life. You still
Speaker 1: love to sit on top of a computer. Those things
Speaker 1: get hot, but you know, they like it, or lay
Speaker 1: in the sun. You know, the sun's pouring in through
Speaker 1: the window and it's making this little hot spot on
Speaker 1: the floor, and the cat loves to lay there. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just down to the fact that again
Speaker 1: I never really realized this before, but that in houses
Speaker 1: that are comfortable for humans, it seems like usually cats
Speaker 1: are going to be pretty cold. Yeah yeah, And and
Speaker 1: you you may find them also gravitating towards rooms that
Speaker 1: are or even just marginally hotter than the rest of
Speaker 1: the house. Uh. So, like we have a middle room
Speaker 1: that has that has only has one window, and so
Speaker 1: it's not losing much much heat through there, and it
Speaker 1: tends to be a little warmer, and that's where the
Speaker 1: cat will be. Uh, that's where she's going to hang out.
Speaker 1: Gardener sites. That two thousand six study by the NRC
Speaker 1: which found quote most cats housing areas are around seventy
Speaker 1: two degrees fahrenheit, a good fourteen degrees colder than a
Speaker 1: domestic cats minimum therm neutral temperature. So imagine if you
Speaker 1: were always living in a house that was fourteen degrees
Speaker 1: fahrenheit colder than the temperature that you would like it
Speaker 1: to be. It doesn't sound great, no, no, but here
Speaker 1: we go boxes to the rescue, because again, corrugated cardboard
Speaker 1: is a great insulator, and also think about confined spaces.
Speaker 1: The insulated material and the tight space offered by especially
Speaker 1: a sort of body fitting box that sort of you know,
Speaker 1: muffintop cat tray that can help trap body heat, pushing
Speaker 1: a cat closer to its comfortable temperature range. And this
Speaker 1: actually seems like a very good explanation to me to
Speaker 1: to help cover the cases where cats are seeking out
Speaker 1: boxes that are clearly not serving any kind of hiding purpose.
Speaker 1: I suspect there's a lot to this one, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to mention one more possible hypothesis for for cat
Speaker 1: box preferences that I came across. This one was cited
Speaker 1: in an article originally published on The Conversation republished in
Speaker 1: a number of other places by Nicholas H. Dodman, who
Speaker 1: is an American professor emeritus of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.
Speaker 1: I was looking around. Looks like he does a lot
Speaker 1: of TV appearances as an animal behavior expert, and it
Speaker 1: also looks like he has some products he sells, some
Speaker 1: pet type stuff, so caveat on those things. But he
Speaker 1: does point to a piece of published research that would
Speaker 1: at least tell us a little bit about the possible
Speaker 1: animal neuroendo chronology of box preferences, and the idea is
Speaker 1: this it's comfort via flank pressure on the body. Dodman writes, quote,
Speaker 1: think of it as a kind of swaddling behavior. The
Speaker 1: close contact with the boxes interior, we believe releases endorphins,
Speaker 1: nature's own morphine like substances, causing pleasure and reducing stress.
Speaker 1: And the research that he cites in support of this
Speaker 1: is a study that he co authored with the animal
Speaker 1: behaviorist Temple Grandin, who is you might know her from.
Speaker 1: She's also written a lot about autism spectrum disorders UM.
Speaker 1: But they they found that pigs were comforted by what
Speaker 1: they call flank pressure or lateral side pressure, so gentle
Speaker 1: squeezing against the side of the body that seemed to
Speaker 1: trigger a relaxation response in these mammals, at least partially
Speaker 1: due to a release of endorphins, according to Dodman. And
Speaker 1: this was published in Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine. So that's yet another possibility that it could
Speaker 1: be there is some kind of route through which having
Speaker 1: something pressing up tightly but you know, not too hard,
Speaker 1: but gently squeezing against the sides of its body causes
Speaker 1: a hormone release inside the cat's body that leads to
Speaker 1: decreased stress, a kind of a general euphoric response. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's the cuddling feeling. And this also
Speaker 1: seems plausible to me. It would I think it would
Speaker 1: overlap significantly with the kinds of stimuli that cats would
Speaker 1: seek out for the thermoregulatory reasons we mentioned just a
Speaker 1: minute ago. But I wonder you could maybe create an
Speaker 1: experiment to differentiate these two hypotheses by using boxes of
Speaker 1: different temperatures or insulation potentials or something. Yeah, but anyway,
Speaker 1: I think we have ended up with a number of good,
Speaker 1: plausible reasons to understand why cats would seek out boxes,
Speaker 1: and even boxes of very different kinds. You know, some
Speaker 1: would be rooted in in hiding and safety and and
Speaker 1: predatory advantage or maybe mitigating potential potential social conflict within
Speaker 1: other members of the household or or the herd whatever
Speaker 1: you would call it of cats. So what is the
Speaker 1: group name for cats? Well, I mean, like you have
Speaker 1: a feral colony of cats. Okay, the colony, let's call
Speaker 1: it that. But then the other things would possibly be
Speaker 1: a thermoregulation because in human houses, cats are often going
Speaker 1: to be cold and this potential thing rooted in the
Speaker 1: release of endorphins or the reduction of stress due to
Speaker 1: pressure on the side of the body. But this brings
Speaker 1: us back to a more difficult question that I really
Speaker 1: don't have an answer to. I mean, we can try
Speaker 1: to speculate, but I don't yet have a strong uh
Speaker 1: hypothesis for why it is that cats would like the
Speaker 1: hashtag cat square thing. You know, why why do cats
Speaker 1: like the square on the floor the IKEA instructions or
Speaker 1: even just the square on the floor made of tape
Speaker 1: that are not even three dimensional, not going to press
Speaker 1: their sides, they're not insulated things, they're gonna keep their
Speaker 1: body warm, They're not going to offer any hiding potential.
Speaker 1: I really don't know what's going on there, but it
Speaker 1: does very much interest me. I guess it's it's largely
Speaker 1: like unlike anything that they would encounter in the wild.
Speaker 1: Is one I guess one sort of thing that comes
Speaker 1: to my mind is that like a neat square that
Speaker 1: is uh that is outlined on a on an otherwise
Speaker 1: featureless floor, flat surface, like when would you when would
Speaker 1: you ever have anything like that in the wild. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's just a it's something that they would be unprepared for,
Speaker 1: you know, and that would would sort of create a
Speaker 1: loophole or you know, cognitive error. I'm not sure. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a novelty thing like that's weird. I mean
Speaker 1: the other thing that I kind of suspect though one
Speaker 1: of the studies I'm about to look at would have
Speaker 1: some evidence going against this, I would kind of suspect.
Speaker 1: I wonder if it has to do with the with
Speaker 1: manipulation of the owner's attention. So, you know, when you
Speaker 1: put down some IKEA instructions on the floor, the cat
Speaker 1: may very well noticed that the owner is paying a
Speaker 1: lot of attention to those instructions, and that by coming
Speaker 1: and sitting on top of the instructions, it could very
Speaker 1: well be like, we'll pay attention to me. Huh, well
Speaker 1: maybe so. I mean, I haven't looked at any literature
Speaker 1: on this, but I imagine anyone out there has ever
Speaker 1: tried to set and work using a laptop, you'll have
Speaker 1: that scenario where the cat perhaps wishes to be fed,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna it's gonna want to hang out right
Speaker 1: next to you, sometimes with its front paws on your
Speaker 1: mouse pad, sometimes even attacking your hand if you move
Speaker 1: the mouse around, so um I I wouldn't put it
Speaker 1: past them. Um, I guess the The one thought that
Speaker 1: does come to mind is that if the cat wants
Speaker 1: your attention, usually the cat will come to you, you know,
Speaker 1: like you would have to be rather close to those instructions,
Speaker 1: and at least in my own household, I see the
Speaker 1: cat drawn to those uh I key instructions or lego instructions,
Speaker 1: even if they are just you know, left to the
Speaker 1: side and they're not really being engaged with by by
Speaker 1: the humans. That's a good point. I feel like the
Speaker 1: occupation often takes place when your back is turned, you know,
Speaker 1: you you go look at something else, then you come
Speaker 1: back and and the cat or in my case even
Speaker 1: the dog is on top of whatever flat thing you've
Speaker 1: just put on the floor. Yeah, and now yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm I'm less inclined to think that the
Speaker 1: cat is going to be playing three D chess with
Speaker 1: with you know, the social arrayment entremants of the house.
Speaker 1: But then again, you do get into explanations for say,
Speaker 1: um uh inappropriate urination in cats where it's tied to
Speaker 1: uh the smells associated with owners and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So so there are some complex scenarios going on that
Speaker 1: that maybe don't seem as a parent to you know,
Speaker 1: the human owners of of the beings, because a part
Speaker 1: of it comes down to the fact that that any
Speaker 1: animal in your house, any pet, beat a dog or
Speaker 1: a cat, they're going to live in a different sensory
Speaker 1: realm than you do. You know, the parameters of that
Speaker 1: sense realm are different, and of course just cognitively and socially,
Speaker 1: they're different from ms as well. Thank well, maybe the
Speaker 1: following will shed some kind of light. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: it will, but but we'll try. So. This study that
Speaker 1: was cited in that article by Jennifer will Let that
Speaker 1: inspired me to want to talk about this today. Uh.
Speaker 1: This study was published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior
Speaker 1: Science and it is by Gabriella E. Smith, Philippe A. Sward,
Speaker 1: and Sarah E. Biocier. It is called if I fits
Speaker 1: I sits colan, a citizen science investigation into illusory contour
Speaker 1: susceptibility in domestic cats Felis sylvestris catus. And essentially this
Speaker 1: study built off of this observation or you know, people
Speaker 1: have been posting all their cats square pictures on the internet.
Speaker 1: They make a square made out of tape on the floor.
Speaker 1: The cat, for some reason, we don't know quite why,
Speaker 1: but for some reason comes and sits within the square.
Speaker 1: The authors here we're looking into the question will cats
Speaker 1: do that even for a square that isn't there but
Speaker 1: is merely suggested by a visual illusion? And I thought
Speaker 1: this was a great question, you know, like, do do
Speaker 1: other animals see the same optical illusions that we do?
Speaker 1: And it appears, at least in some cases, they do.
Speaker 1: So this study was about whether they would fall for
Speaker 1: a particular known visual illusion that's been documented for I
Speaker 1: think at least several decades, now known as the Kanitza
Speaker 1: contour illusion, named after an Italian psychologist named Gitano Kanitza.
Speaker 1: And of course, if you want to picture a kanitsa square,
Speaker 1: you can look it up on the internet. But I'll
Speaker 1: try to describe it. Imagine a square that isn't there,
Speaker 1: but is suggested by the mouths of four pac men.
Speaker 1: So if you take a pac man or basically it's
Speaker 1: just a disk with one quarter of it removed, and
Speaker 1: then you face them at as if they were each
Speaker 1: biting the corner of a square, but there is no square.
Speaker 1: It's just the pac man with their mouths all turned
Speaker 1: in at at four different corners. The visual illusion that's
Speaker 1: created is the illusion of a non existent square. And so,
Speaker 1: to quote from the the abstract of this article, the
Speaker 1: authors here right, Uh, they want they wanted to know
Speaker 1: if cats are also susceptible quote to sitting in enclosures
Speaker 1: that are illusory in nature, use utilizing cats attraction to
Speaker 1: box like spaces to assess their perception of the kanitza
Speaker 1: square visual illusion. And so the interesting thing about the
Speaker 1: study was that it basically crowd sourced. It's it's data
Speaker 1: collection uh. To continue eating quote carried out during the
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen pandemic. This study randomly assigned citizen science participants
Speaker 1: booklets of six randomized counterbalance daily stimuli to print out, prepare,
Speaker 1: and place on the floor in pairs. Owners observed and
Speaker 1: video recorded their cat's behavior with the stimuli, and reported
Speaker 1: findings from home over the course of six daily trials.
Speaker 1: The study ultimately reached over five hundred pet cats and
Speaker 1: cat owners, and of those, thirty completed all the studies trials.
Speaker 1: This is one of the major limitations of like of
Speaker 1: crowdsourcing citizen science. Right there, because they had a large
Speaker 1: dropout rate, But the authors continue, of these nine cats,
Speaker 1: subjects selected at least one stimulus by sitting within the
Speaker 1: contours illusory or otherwise with all limbs for at least
Speaker 1: three seconds. The study revealed that cats selected the Kanitza
Speaker 1: illusion just as often as the square and more often
Speaker 1: than the control, indicating that domestic cats may treat the
Speaker 1: subjective Kanitza contours as they do real contours. Given the
Speaker 1: drawbacks of citizen science projects such as participant attrition, again
Speaker 1: that's the people who dropped out of the study as
Speaker 1: it went on, future research would benefit from replicating the
Speaker 1: study and controlled settings. To the best of our knowledge,
Speaker 1: this investigation is the first of its kind in three
Speaker 1: regards a citizen science study of cat cognition, a formal
Speaker 1: examination the cats attraction to two D rather than three
Speaker 1: D enclos posures. So this would be the first thing
Speaker 1: studying the squares and not just the boxes, and study
Speaker 1: into cats susceptibility to illusory contours in an ecologically relevant paradigm.
Speaker 1: So there are the obvious caveats that that we mentioned
Speaker 1: having to do with like the difficulty of conducting a
Speaker 1: crowdsourced experiment of this kind, and it probably needs to
Speaker 1: be backed up with other research under more controlled conditions.
Speaker 1: That the authors do point out that there was a study,
Speaker 1: I think from nineteen eight that also found some evidence
Speaker 1: of perception of visual illusions such as the Knitza square
Speaker 1: in cats, but I think these were in lab trained
Speaker 1: cats who had been conditioned to sort of press a
Speaker 1: button when they saw a square in order to get
Speaker 1: a food reward. And when the cats were presented with
Speaker 1: a Knitza square where there actually isn't a square, they
Speaker 1: press the button. So it seems like they do perceive
Speaker 1: the same visual illusions that we do. And actually was
Speaker 1: looking up I was like, are there other examples of
Speaker 1: cats responding to visual illusions that that effect humans? And
Speaker 1: yes there are. I came across an example that I
Speaker 1: thought was really interesting. Uh, this was about the rotating
Speaker 1: snakes illusion, which I thought was just delightful. So the
Speaker 1: rotating snake's illusion is a type of illusory motion where
Speaker 1: a static image appears to be moving. Robert, I've attached
Speaker 1: an image for you to stare at. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're getting the illusory motion, but I absolutely am.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm getting a little bit dizzy looking at
Speaker 1: this right now, I need to scroll down. Um. But
Speaker 1: uh So, there was a study published in the journal
Speaker 1: Psychology inteen by both at ALL called Cats and Allusory Motion. First,
Speaker 1: they note the anecdotal documentation of cats reacting to the
Speaker 1: rotating snake's illusion, which is uh. They document a bunch
Speaker 1: of videos of cats, especially kittens, being presented with a
Speaker 1: print out of one of these illusions, and to describe it,
Speaker 1: the rotating snakes are essentially a bunch of different discs
Speaker 1: that have um that have different colors within the rings
Speaker 1: of the disks, and the way the colors are arranged
Speaker 1: causes the disks to appear to be kind of rotating
Speaker 1: or slithering around even though they're not moving. And anyway,
Speaker 1: this study documented how some cats had been observed to
Speaker 1: react to static print outs of this illusion by attacking them,
Speaker 1: essentially trying to prey on them as if they were
Speaker 1: snakes moving around on the page. Uh, and that this
Speaker 1: was supported by a cat owner survey that tried this
Speaker 1: out on a bunch of cats and and found Yeah,
Speaker 1: at least twenty nine percent of respondents said that their
Speaker 1: cat reacted to this illusion. And Rob, I've got some
Speaker 1: videos attached if you want to take a look. One
Speaker 1: thing that I thought was interesting about this was that,
Speaker 1: according to the survey of pet owners, cats that responded
Speaker 1: to the illusion were on average two point four years
Speaker 1: younger than cats that did not react to the illusion,
Speaker 1: and the authors hypothesized this result from the beginning, not
Speaker 1: because they thought that younger cats would be more likely
Speaker 1: to see the illusion, but just because younger cat are
Speaker 1: more likely on average to react to motion within their
Speaker 1: visual field by attacking it, and older cats, I think,
Speaker 1: are more likely to see the illusion at the same rate.
Speaker 1: But just be like, yeah, so what, Yeah, the videos
Speaker 1: are interesting here. I have not tried this out on
Speaker 1: my own cat. I'm tempted to. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: this pattern looks like and this experiment looks like it
Speaker 1: was perhaps created by by Big Printer inc uh to
Speaker 1: get me to blow through my ank a lot faster.
Speaker 1: But still, I I mean, if it enriches the cat
Speaker 1: at all, I'm I'm all for it. But I wonder
Speaker 1: if she, since she's an older cat, she may I
Speaker 1: don't know, she might not be that into it. It
Speaker 1: would be interesting to see. But anyway, these studies, you know,
Speaker 1: they make it clear that Okay, cats do respond to
Speaker 1: at least some of the visual illusions that humans do.
Speaker 1: It seems that, uh, if the results of the new
Speaker 1: study or valid, then then cats do seem to react
Speaker 1: to kinitza contours the illusory squares sort of the same
Speaker 1: way that they react to real squares laid out in
Speaker 1: tape on the floor, and that they do seem to react,
Speaker 1: at least in some cases to these, uh, these static
Speaker 1: discs as if they are snakes moving around on the
Speaker 1: page that must be squatted and tortured, as is a
Speaker 1: cat's noble duty. Uh. It just one more side note
Speaker 1: because before I leave this topic, I came across this
Speaker 1: as well, the question do fish perceive illusory motion? Uh?
Speaker 1: There was a study published in Nature Scientific Reports in
Speaker 1: fourteen by gory at All that looked into okay, do
Speaker 1: fish fall for the rotating snakes illusion? And they used
Speaker 1: a conditioning task where we're fish were supposed to respond
Speaker 1: to motion by doing a certain thing, and then when
Speaker 1: they when you sub in the rotating snakes, do they
Speaker 1: fall for it? And it looks like sometimes they do.
Speaker 1: So even fish perceives some of the same visual illusions
Speaker 1: that humans do. Interesting. Yeah, when it comes to cats
Speaker 1: and the illusion of a box. The only other thing
Speaker 1: that's coming to mind, and again this is something that
Speaker 1: is a product of their their unnatural habitats inside of
Speaker 1: a human house, is that if you have light coming
Speaker 1: through a window, it may you know, it may take
Speaker 1: on um, you know, a square, rectangular or vaguely rectangular
Speaker 1: form on a bed or the floor, and then they
Speaker 1: know are gonna be drawn to it. But of course
Speaker 1: there's a thermal payoff for for for taking a nap
Speaker 1: in that square. Uh. And obviously that's not going to
Speaker 1: be the case if you just outline a square with
Speaker 1: tape or have one of these illusory squares created with
Speaker 1: these pac men. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about the same thing. I was thinking.
Speaker 1: Are our cats um drawn to squares because of some
Speaker 1: kind of evolved adapted behavior or because of a conditioned
Speaker 1: behavior that is very common within with living in human houses?
Speaker 1: You know, is there something about living in human houses
Speaker 1: that overtime teaches cats that when there's a square shaped
Speaker 1: thing on the floor, I should go sit on that.
Speaker 1: Or is this something you would see, say wildcat's doing
Speaker 1: when present it with the opportunity, right, I mean, it
Speaker 1: seems like like the wild version of this would be uh,
Speaker 1: sunlight that is filtered through a tree canopy. So but
Speaker 1: I mean be square shaped. Yeah, it wouldn't be square shaped.
Speaker 1: So it seems like that. I mean, I could be wrong,
Speaker 1: but it seems like that would would certainly overpower any
Speaker 1: cubicle or rectangular thinking that might emerge during their they're
Speaker 1: they're they're ultimately brief air of captivity. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: not be surprised if somebody was actually able to identify
Speaker 1: a way in which, like domestic cats that live in
Speaker 1: human houses are more likely to sit on squares. I
Speaker 1: don't know exactly what the reason would be. I think
Speaker 1: the light through the windows of very good guess, but
Speaker 1: something like that that they're used to seeking out and
Speaker 1: getting a reward for seeking out that's roughly square shaped
Speaker 1: on the floor. Now, if we're thinking about thermal differences,
Speaker 1: I guess it is also worth thinking about if you have,
Speaker 1: say you have a shipment come in, um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's you know, some sort of like Amazon box or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you bring that in the house. If it's uh,
Speaker 1: if it's if it's hot outside, if that box has
Speaker 1: been setting in a delivery vehicle, then there's probably a
Speaker 1: thermal difference in that box too. Oh interesting, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: fresh boxes even warmer. But then again, the reverse would
Speaker 1: be true, right if it's been on a box. If
Speaker 1: that box has been setting, uh, you know, in a
Speaker 1: delivery vehicle all day or for a couple of days
Speaker 1: and it's cold out, then it seems like there would
Speaker 1: be an unattractive thermal difference in that box. So do
Speaker 1: cats get in the box faster in the summer or
Speaker 1: does it not make a difference. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Alright, Well,
Speaker 1: maybe we're just gonna have to call it there for
Speaker 1: part one. Part one will be about about cats seeking
Speaker 1: out these box and square shaped enclosures, and then we're
Speaker 1: gonna come back in part two and talk about humans.
Speaker 1: Yeah sounds good. It should should be fun because, um,
Speaker 1: I think if we if we're fair, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of situations where humans have and continue uh to
Speaker 1: draw towards enclosure enclosures, you know, small spaces in the
Speaker 1: comfort of small spaces, and so it Yeah, it'll be
Speaker 1: interesting to go from the realm of cats uh sitting
Speaker 1: and fitting in boxes to humans doing something along the
Speaker 1: same lines. It fits. Therefore, I am yeah all right.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you want to check out other
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you know where
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