
Cats rival dogs on many tests of social smarts - pseudolus
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/05/cats-rival-dogs-many-tests-social-smarts-anyone-brave-enough-study-them
======
dghughes
Cats are not dogs which I think throws off people used to dogs.

Unlike dogs cats don't eat two meals per day they eat many small meals over
the span of a day, often at a very specific time.

I also think cats throw off some people because they don't understand cats
have an internal schedule. Even male cats that wander will do so at specific
times and if they meet other Tom's will alter their schedule to avoid
conflict.

My parents' cat puts my dad to bed each night. My mom said the cat will wait
for him by his bed and if he isn't there at the "correct time" the cat goes to
get him. Then once dad is asleep the cat leaves to perform other tasks on its
list.

When my uncle visits my parent's their cat comes to greet my uncle. If he
doesn't show up at the correct time she is visibly agitated.

Another time my parents cat saw a spider and my mother said the cat will go to
the same corner at the same time to look for the spider, it's been going on
for seven years.

There are many small things cats owners and we who have grown up with cats
know cats have many subtle personality traits.

~~~
iforgotpassword
I've had both (but a cat first so bias) and I must say I really prefer cats
for that reason: They seem to have more personality, or maybe that's not the
right word but rather their behavior seems more diverse, and it's easier to
map lots of their quirks and habits to human behavior. Dogs are usually
praised as loyal companions and that's mostly how I experienced that too, but
it was always a more naive thing. Like a little boy that understood that
you're the one feeding him and being really happy and thankful for that. A cat
is more like a teenager that needs a lot more space, but when they do spend
time with you you enjoy it all the more.

~~~
basetop
That's only for city folk who essentially trap their cats or dogs in their
apartments to help with their loneliness. Frankly I think pet ownership in
cities should be made illegal because it's harmful to the pets and wild
animals.

What a dog is like or a cat is like depends on setting. A dog is far superior
to a cat on a farm or out hunting or in nature. You'll notice a lot more
"quirks" out in nature with a dog than a cat.

It's why dogs were domesticated long before we domesticated any animal.

The only thing cats have over dogs is their athletic ability. But in terms of
human qualities and interactions, dogs pretty much evolved to be with humans.
People who think otherwise might have that parasite that cats give to their
owners.

------
sudosteph
> Clara leaves. Lyla begins to circle, seemingly in a panic, and then creeps
> toward the door where Clara exited. Then Lyla meows. And meows. And meows.

Growing up, I had always assumed my cats didn't care didn't when I left them
alone. And maybe those cats didn't. But of the 3 cats I've had as an adult,
I've been able to get recordings of 2 of them standing at the door and meowing
for a few minutes when I leave the house. They also run out and greet me and
my husband when we return home. Those two never even met each other, so they
each developed those behavior independently. They each had another cat at home
to keep them company - but they really do have a strong social attachment to
their humans. The other cat... not so much. But I definitely am not surprised
to see that studies are finally confirming that some cats are socially quite
clever and capable - but it's highly dependent on the particular cat,
relationship with the human, and the environment they're in.

~~~
burtonator2011
Cats that are raised as kittens and that you've had since they were young
basically view you as their mother.

If they are more independent/feral then they don't really bond as strongly and
are more wild.

~~~
chaosbutters314
My cat would disagree. He was a stray we got from the pound. He gives me zero
personal space and wants constant love. Greets me when I come home and is very
affectionate.

He has markings of taking a beating in the wild so I think a full belly and
safe environment makes him appreciative.

~~~
ianai
I have a very similar cat. Rescued him last year. Will not let me out of his
sight unless I’ve been home for 5 days straight and played him out.

------
funkjunky
Anecdotally, when I volunteered at an animal shelter, we had to undergo
training to work with both the dog and feline populations. Something they
taught us, and eventually witnessed ourselves, is that cats form much more
complex social systems than dogs do. Dogs have the typical alpha/everyone else
system, whereas cats seem to have more specialized roles in their
organization. Some monitored the food rations, some were on watch at the door,
some controlled certain areas or furniture, etc. They even rotated night
shifts! Hard to verify experimentally, but work with them often enough and you
start to notice the patterns. I think they're much smarter and more
sophisticated than we give them credit for, especially when it comes to social
behavior.

~~~
alchemism
Athens, like many Mediterranean cities where winter is easy, has a massive
urban feral cat population. In that environment they form colonies, often
inhabiting the ruins and other protected spaces scattered about the city.
Networks of cat-loving residents feed and support the colonies as best they
can.

Cat-loving friends there have told interesting stories of observing complex
political behavior, e.g. turf wars between rival colonies operating as if they
were street gangs. Night ambushes, targeted assassination of enemy leaders.

I took it with a grain of salt, but now I wonder...

~~~
p_l
After hearing of seagull gangs having turf wars, and observing a ritualised
duel between two seagulls with a circle of watchers who proctored it (the
whole thing looked like Greek wrestling using beaks), believing in organized
warfare between cats... Is easy.

------
Sharlin
Even the most antisocial of wildcats exhibits complex social behavior in one
phase of its life: as a kitten, interacting with its mother and littermates.
Kittens meow if they get separated from their mother, they pick up cues from
their mother in unfamiliar situations, and so on. Those experiments were very
reminiscent of how a kitten interacts with its mother.

Domesticated cats and dogs exhibit neoteny: the retention of several juvenile
traits in adulthood. What's more, neoteny appears to naturally result when you
selectively breed a canine or feline for a sociable, human-friendly phenotype.

In housecats, social behavior may be a neotenous trait, exhibited by their
wild ancestors only in kittenhood. Our pets can be seen as living in a sort of
a prolonged adolescence and perhaps even regarding us as surrogate mothers of
a sort.

What's especially interesting is that _humans also display neoteny_ , and it
is likely related to the theoretized "self-domestication" of ourselves that
the article refers to.

~~~
gshdg
It's worth noting that in a way, social behavior is a neotenous trait in
wolves as well. Wolf packs are basically families.

The "Alphas" are in fact the father and mother; the rest of the adult wolves
are their offspring who haven't yet left the pack to try to establish their
own. If the parents are still hale and healthy when the young adult wolves are
ready to reproduce, they'll leave the pack to seek mates and establish their
own pack.

So pack-style social behavior in a dog is essentially neotenous as well.

------
WheelsAtLarge
I think cats have gotten a bad rap relating to how much they care about their
owners. They don't show their everlasting love like dogs do but they love
their owners just as much. Cats are independent by nature vs dogs that are
pack animals so they behave differently.

In terms of intelligence, cats are usually a top predator so they by
definition have to be smart to be able to outsmart all their prey.

In terms of social smarts, they are geniuses. How many species live in
people's houses and are completely cared for and it goes on generation after
generation? Cats are one of the top ones. If they didn't have social smarts
that would not be the case.

None of what the article says should be a surprise to anyone.

~~~
checkyoursudo
I had a cat who was almost doglike in the amount of affection he showed me. I
was often like, dude, don't you have cat things you can go do?

I only say almost though, because he could definitely be normal-cat-moody
sometimes. The most dog-like cat I've ever known. He was a good boy. :)

~~~
celrod
My cat will not leave me alone. She's in my lap all day when I'm at the
computer, then on my chest at night when I go to bed. If I try to lay on my
side, she'll meow until I roll over.

She becomes agitated when I prepare to leave the apartment. I can't sit down
to tie my shoes, else she'll get in my lap and try to stay put.

She'll be eighteen this or next month. I was in elementary school when my
parents got her as a kitten.

She's not independent. I don't think cat's being extremely loving is that
unusual. My mom complained that her cat also will even follow her trip the
bathroom and try to get into her lap when she sits down.

I think highly social cats are much gentler, less in-your-face, than dogs.
Cats match my rhythm better, and if I'm working home all day on a computer,
it's nice to have a vibrating buddy.

------
bsenftner
20 years ago, I made the stupid comment to my wife that cats were not
intelligent, just parrots of behavior for food. She argued and said "we're
getting a cat!" "Sure, whatever" I said, thinking it would be "a dumb cat" and
nothing more. Blow my mind, our first cat was a 3 month old feral, scared and
pooping everywhere for the first few days. After just short of a week, my wife
gained trust, and soon the cat was freely independent and appreciative. (He
was scroungy, near death thin when we got him.) Then his personality began to
show: he loved my wife painting and gardening, and he loved me working on 3D
modeling. He would sit next to my monitors watching me modeling. After about a
year of this, I realized as a model neared completion his purring would gain
volume. Renders with shadows would get him acting out. I suspected he was
reading me and my satisfaction, but that reading was pretty intuitive, and I
felt intelligent. Also, he liked to be fed around 2am, and would wake me with
a gentle purr to my ear and once waking he'd touch his mouth with his paw take
it to my mouth and meow in a unique way he used at no other time. Often we'd
stay awake for an a hour after his 2am feeding, and he'd take me into the
garden and show me what my wife had been working on, pointing out the new
plantings and places where she's trimming. His hunting skills were remarkable
too. He was a jumper, and would suddenly leap 6-8 feed into the air and eat a
fly. We rarely had flies in-house, thanks to him. Sad to say, he developed
feline leukemia, hid it until his body smelled like rotting fruit and died the
day we realized. After he was gone, we realized he always positioned himself
downwind from us for the last year of his life. He was such an intuitive soul,
he solidly taught me the intelligence of cats.

~~~
Aloha
I'm sorry for your loss.

------
csomar
Cats are definitively smart. I was once training my dog how to sit and
rewarding him with food. A stray cat caught on the action and come a bit close
and sat/stood up as I said the words. At first I didn't get what was up but
then I gave him food like the dog. His behavior definitively surprised me.

I have a friendly cat now that lives in my garden. He/She was astray but
figured out how to extract resources at my will from kitchen. It is
interesting how quickly he learned to respect boundaries, learn my schedule
and sense my presence when I'm back home.

------
blunte
It’s not surprising that cats are smart. Many things are... but humans oddly
assume that anything that cannot speak their language is not smart unless
tested and proven so.

As for the dogs vs cats, my experience with both tells me that dogs often seek
human approval and attention. Cats only seek attention (or food or petting),
when they want it.

So testing cats would also be a test of human patience and persistence.

~~~
clairity
yes, trying to understand cat and dog communications is half the fun of having
them as companions. both of my cats have meows i can understand by sound and
context, whether it's hunger, attention-seeking, calling for help, etc., but
each has individual tendencies. for instance, my older one uses short fast
meows to wake me up to feed him, while the 9-month-old meows her
disappointment when i disrupt her play by picking her up. she also tries to
talk to me, watching me with her curious eyes to see if i understand her. =)

~~~
topspin
One of my cats understood a small vocabulary. I first noticed it when I
mentioned "catnip" in a sentence and she got excited. She learned a number of
words during her life, mostly - but not all - food related. She had no problem
picking them out of a sentence, so we learned to avoid saying certain words
when not appropriate.

~~~
cm2012
It's funny when I ask my wife if she's hungry and the cats chime in.

~~~
blunte
That's really funny!

------
Buttons840
I've been reading the book "Alaska's Wolf Man", which talks some about the
behaviors of wolfs. I was impressed with the stories of there intellect and
their ability to work together. Obviously, a lot of the intelligence we see in
dogs is inherited instinct from their wolf ancestors.

I've also given some thought (based on other reading) about how only a small
portion of our brain is responsible for thought, and what we would consider
our "self" to be. We are the thinking portion of our brain "riding" on the
rest of our animal brain. This explains why willpower alone does not easily
change our behavior, our lower-level animal brain is a physical thing (and
intelligent in it's own way) and we must reason with it and give it time to
adapt in order for us to change our behaviors. (Of course, all this is
probably as much imagination as it is science.)

Perhaps many animals are more equal in "raw intelligence" than we would think,
it's just that their intellect is "riding" on a different set of instincts.

~~~
toasterlovin
> Perhaps many animals are more equal in "raw intelligence" than we would
> think

I think the incredible difficulty of something like machine vision versus,
say, boolean logic says a lot about how similar most animals, and especially
mammals, are. We consider the parts of our intellect that are most logical to
be what distinguishes us from the other species. But it turns out that kind of
stuff is really simple, computationally. Computers have been better at it than
humans since basically as soon as computers were invented. Whereas all the
stuff we have in common with most other animals turns out to be _really
fucking hard_.

------
speedplane
Both cats and dogs are animals that have been domesticated by humans. Thus,
they both understand human social norms to an extent necessary for their
survival. Saying that cats are smarter than dogs or vice-versa seems silly.
Both have adapted to different human social norms that humans find desirable.

Humans have tons of social norms that animals can exploit to their genetic
advantage. A domesticated animal does not need to master all of them to be
successful.

This is a long way of saying that dogs are "smarter" at some things and cats
are "smarter" at some things, can't we just accept that?

~~~
Ultramanoid
> Both cats and dogs are animals that have been domesticated by humans.

From the article : _Dogs and cats traveled different roads to the human home:
Dogs evolved from the social, cooperative gray wolf and are the product of
thousands of years of intensive breeding and selection by humans. Cats, by
contrast, descend from the fiercely antisocial and territorial Near Eastern
wildcat, and they largely domesticated themselves, as the tamest cats began to
hang out and hunt rodents in early farming villages._

~~~
speedplane
> they largely domesticated themselves as the tamest cats began to hang out
> and hunt rodents in early farming villages.

This is the problem. Cats didn't domesticate themselves any more than dogs.
Dogs chased away predators, cats chased away rodents. Both were domesticated
by humans, albeit based on different desirable traits.

~~~
Ultramanoid
Dogs today are essentially a human creation, through genetic selection and
breeding, not so much domesticated as, for all intents and purposes, created.
And cats, by and large, aren't.

~~~
Talanes
The breeding of the modern dog into all of it's varied forms was something
made possible by domestication, not a factor of domestication.

~~~
Ultramanoid
That's a good point.

------
cm2012
I love this thread. My wife and I have 7 cats, and they range the gamut of
smarts and emotional intelligence. But all know their names, and 4/7 will come
when called by their name.

~~~
interfixus
Strangely, I can confirm those numbers _exactly_ , except exchanging 'wife'
for 'labrador retriever'.

Top of the range is a guy with a history much like Carl in the article (whom
he even looks like): Rescued as a small, scrawny, lost kitten. Now ten years
old, still small and scrawny, but wickedly smart. There's all the basic stuff
like opening doors, if necessary climbing nearby furniture to reach the
handle, and then there's all the less easily quantifiable behaviour -
foreseeing my actions, picking up the gist of relevant conversation,
integrating smoothly into domestic life, balancing resources (food and litter)
between upstairs and downstairs, and undoubtedly lots that I no longer notice,
because I've come to take it for granted.

------
jerrysievert
it's good to see a study confirm the behavior that i've seen with several cats
i've had as an adult. while not with all, i often feel that it was because of
not caring rather than not having the intelligence.

my current companion, a 3 year old tuxedo, loves to travel wherever she can
with me in her bubble backpack, and meows heavily when i leave her behind. she
always comes when called (either to her name, or to "kitten") and acts
extremely intelligently. i feel that many cat "owners" who have had multiple
cats have seen great intelligence in them that easily rivals dogs.

~~~
davidgould
Please tell me more about the bubble backpack, I have a cat that might like
traveling with me.

~~~
jerrysievert
i bought mine on amazon, it shipped from china. from what i understand, i got
extremely lucky in that only somewhere near 50% of cats seem to like it. this
is the review that i learned about how many cats like it vs not liking it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mS-F4k4TnY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mS-F4k4TnY)
and mine (hers) is similar (but blue) -- i had the backpack before i saw the
review.

she doesn't like to ride in cars, and is wary of elevators, but loves going to
the pub. she's happy to sit in it with the backpack open when she's not at
home, and simply purrs and rubs her face/head on my hands when i reach in to
pet her.

one warning: it is an attraction, she has had many people wishing to take
photos of her ... thankfully she loves getting her picture taken.

editing to add: this is the one i purchased -
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J2V5LOM](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J2V5LOM)

i can provide a photo of her in it if _really_ needed

~~~
astura
That doesn't seem like enough ventilation.

I've seen someone wearing something like this one once
[https://www.chewy.com/pet-gear-i-go-plus-traveler-
black/dp/4...](https://www.chewy.com/pet-gear-i-go-plus-traveler-
black/dp/49442) seems like a better idea.

~~~
jerrysievert
the sides are mesh (you can see completely through the backpack on its sides),
along with the 3 ringed holes per side, so there is constantly air moving
through it. she prefers the bubble attachment (the other is a perforated round
disc) so that she can watch everything around her, and thus know she would not
like the one you linked.

she is never in high heat while in her backpack, and airflow is very good
throughout it.

------
ErikAugust
One time I ran an overnight ultra marathon. It was 12 hours of running, and I
managed 62 miles (100 kilometers).

Anyway, I made it home and I was laying on our bed not asleep, but about to
be. Our family cat jumps up and sits on my feet purring. The cat somehow knew,
and massaged my feet. It had never done such a thing before, and never again
after. I have never had my mind blown more by an animal.

~~~
huffmsa
Your feet were probably extremely warm from all of the blood and lymphatic
fluid pumping through them to heal the damage.

Unfortunately, the cynic in me says your cat was most likely being a mooch.

------
b_tterc_p
I feel tests like these are odd. The theoretical conclusions you could draw,
at best, are vague curiosities.

I also think they should not treat all cats equally. Maine Coon cats, for
instance, have always struck me as an order of magnitude more intelligent than
average cats.

~~~
SubiculumCode
The difficulty is in comparison. Dogs and cats will be motivated by different
things thus the form of any cognitive test will differ between species. This
tends to mean that you cannot directly compare mean scores between species.
What this usually resorts to is a testing strategy in which you test for
minimal competencies. This comes up in infant reaearch all the time. Can we
set up a test in such a way so that we can show that infants remember X.
Unfortunately, this rarely gives you information about how good they are at
it, how able are they to do it when the context is not perfectly arranged to
support that type of cognition, etc. So I suspect that cats and dogs both show
some set of cognitive competencies, but how they actually compare in
intellectual ability will be quite difficult to assess.

~~~
b_tterc_p
Precisely my point. Theoretically it’s not useful, at best

------
dataveg
“In ancient times, cats were worshiped as gods. They have not forgotten this”

— Sir Terrence.

------
phasetransition
N=1 story of great childhood cat: he was a Russian blue, which I later came to
understand as a particularly smart and affectionate breed.

He would come like a dog, knew many words like "peanut butter," was very
clever at opening and closing all manner of doors, and was very affectionate,
if you were the only one around.

Literally would grab your ankles and try to restrain you from leaving. But
only if you were the only one around.

Incredible sense of spatial awareness and time of day, too. Both seem common
traits to cats.

------
huffmsa
I find it hard to believe that it took until 1996 to figure out that dogs can
follow gaze and points.

That's the basis of how bird hunting dogs work. They follow the end of the
firearm like a finger, see the fowl, see the fowl fall, then go retrieve it.

------
Stratoscope
For anyone wondering if cats are smart, here are two of ours after I was done
playing with them with their bird feather toy one night. I figured I would
stash it on a chair and maybe they would entertain themselves. And they did!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46rROBUDPYI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46rROBUDPYI)

Tulie, the one on top working the toy, is the smarter one. She had been
studying how I work the toy and decided she could do it herself!

Sephie, who Tulie was entertaining, is not quite as smart, but super sweet.

They and the dogs are best of friends.

------
lostlogin
Dogs are disturbingly human in their flaws, something I haven’t noticed in our
cats (other then them being mean). Our dog is racist and misogynistic. Smaller
and younger dogs are picked on and bigger dogs are pandered to. Most of this
has been stamped out, but it flares up periodically. Having dinner served and
permission to eat granted by a female who goes out the door first is both
amusing to watch and educational for him.

~~~
dqybh
This is the most bugman comment I've read here in a long time.

------
growlist
Amongst all the domestic cat love in here please let's not forget the
devastation they cause to wildlife. The same isn't true of dogs.

------
js2
Cats are clearly smart, but also narcissistic egotistical psychopaths that are
liable to try to tear your head off if you don't let them win. A dog would
never do this:

[https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-48167754/catwalk-
ga...](https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-48167754/catwalk-gatecrasher-
becomes-surprise-fashion-star)

~~~
781
Research actually shows that dogs start munching on their dead owner much
sooner than cats:

> _In 24 percent of the cases in the 2015 review, which all involved dogs,
> less than a day had passed before the partially eaten body was found. What’s
> more, some of the dogs had access to normal food they hadn’t eaten._

[https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/pets-dogs-
cats-e...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/pets-dogs-cats-eat-
dead-owners-forensics-science/)

------
Zarath
Cats are extremely intelligent, it only takes spending a few days with one and
it becomes quite obvious. Dogs on the other hand, I haven't quite figured them
out...

------
lupinglade
Have a Siamese, he’s smarter than any dog I’ve had or met.

