Do cats really care about you? Now we have a conclusion

Hello, this is Science Popularization China. We often hear a saying that "cats are naturally aloof and hard to tame." But is it really so? I wonder if you have ever had this experience: your cat is sleeping next to you, maybe even snoring. If you happen to be about to leave the room at this time, what will your cat think?

Although it looks like it is sleeping, it is actually paying attention to you. Maybe it is upset that you left without saying goodbye. This is not nonsense. Studies have found that cats will estimate your location based on the sound clues in the environment and your voice.

Copyright images in the gallery. Reprinting and using them may lead to copyright disputes.

This is a kind of social spatial cognition. Cats will consciously or unconsciously pay attention to and speculate the location of other group members, even if they are out of sight. Cats pay this kind of attention to you.

In order to understand cats' psychology towards their owners, scientists designed a very interesting auditory stimulation experiment. If you are interested, you can try it at home with a Bluetooth speaker.

Copyright images in the gallery. Reprinting and using them may lead to copyright disputes.

Auditory stimulation test

In this experiment, the researchers placed the cats in a familiar environment and placed an identical wireless Bluetooth speaker inside and outside the house. After the experiment began, the researchers played some sound combinations in the speakers inside and outside. The most representative sound combination was: one speaker played the owner's voice first, and then a few seconds later, the same sound was played from another speaker.

When this sound combination is used, cats look very shocked. Researchers believe that this is because cats feel that their owners were talking here just now, and suddenly "teleported" to the other side in the next second. However, cats will not have such a reaction when using other sound combinations. This shows that the owner has a special meaning in their hearts. Now you know that the cat has you in his heart!

Copyright images in the gallery. Reprinting and using them may lead to copyright disputes.

Unfortunately, scientists still don’t know whether it pays special attention to its owner out of love or because it wants to replace humans and have ambitions to rule the world.

Reviewer: Huang Chengming, Researcher, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences