
Researchers strapped video cameras on cats and let them do their thing - conse_lad
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/05/researchers-strapped-video-cameras-16-cats-and-let-them-do-their-thing-here-s-what-they
======
rconti
They have very different understandings of "high-res image" and "full size
image" than I do.

I'm wondering if this is related to a TV show I saw tracking household cats in
the UK. I can't remember if it was Derby or not. They did a lot of GPS
tracking and showed that cats often 'share' territory by time-sharing; one
cat's schedule tends not to overlap another's.

There were also TONS of instances of cats going into multiple homes for meals.
Sometimes sneaking in the cat door and snacking while the residents were
unaware.

~~~
sandworm101
Our family cat, a rescue, would invite other cats in for lunch. Id come
downstairs and see a strange cat eating out of the bowl. Our cat just stood a
foot away like a waiter waiting on a table. I think he just wanted to share
this magical food bowl that was always refilled.

~~~
microtherion
We had 2-3 cats in a rural area, and several times, when their numbers fell
low, they'd recruit an additional cat. So all we did was make sure the new
recruit truly was a stray, and if so, go along with the adoption.

~~~
iamben
So goes the saying - you don't own a cat, a cat owns you...

~~~
philliphaydon
Haha it’s true. My mum gets hay fever from cat and horse hair. We used to have
a stray in our yard sometimes and my mum hated it cos it would dig our
vegetable garden and poo in it. She would throw stones and bricks at it, hose
it, etc. (Never to hurt it, just to scare it away)

One day it came up on our back deck at 11pm at night with a flee collar around
its waist really tight. So my dad and Uncle cut it off and have it some left
over meat from dinner.

We had a ladder leading against the house near the bathroom (about 4 feet away
from the window) which only opens about 2 inches cos of the security latches.
This cat went up the ladder and somehow crossed 4 feet of nothing to the
window. Climbed in and got caught upside down in the blinds.

Mum said any cat that willing to stay can stay, BUT ITS NOT ALLOWED IN THE
ROOM!! It sat at the door and howled and howled so mum said “ok it can stay in
the room BUT ITS NOT ALLOWED ON THE BED!!!!”. It jumped on the bed, mum kicked
it off, it jumped on, mum kicked it off... after 2 nights of this mum gave up
and let it sleep on the bed.

Tiger stayed with us for the next 8 years till he passed. Was my first pet. He
was an outdoor cat. But they are smart. If mum came home from work. He
wouldn’t be seen till dinner time. But sometimes mum would have a bad day at
work. She would get home. And only on the days she had a bad day, he would be
home within minutes of mum getting home and he would bump her legs until she
picked him up. Always made mum feel better. He knew when something was wrong.

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martin_a
This is old news. There is this footage from a family who did this some years
ago:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1zYF0cejmg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1zYF0cejmg)

~~~
ktta
That cat has quite the social life.

~~~
martin_a
If you've got 7 lifes, you can go all in with one or two and see how it turns
out...

~~~
fj39dkf
Cats actually have 9 lives, at least according to current research.

~~~
martin_a
Depends on the country the cat lives in, I think. ;-)

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jandrese
Interesting finding that the cats tended to prefer napping near people, giving
people the impression that cats sleep all the time.

~~~
bitwize
All felids sleep a lot. Lions are known to nap for 2/3 of the day. This
becomes understandable when you realize they live or die based on the success
of a few chases and pounces, for which they must conserve their energy.

But yeah, a cat sleeping near you or "ignoring" you means he likes you enough
that he thinks he can afford to chill out in your presence. He _really_ likes
you if he takes over your bed to sleep in. The highest compliments a cat gives
are often understated.

~~~
andromeduck
> But yeah, a cat sleeping near you or "ignoring" you means he likes you
> enough that he thinks he can afford to chill out in your presence. He really
> likes you if he takes over your bed to sleep in. The highest compliments a
> cat gives are often understated.

Not unlike humans.

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bitwize
I liked the little captions explaining what the cat was doing. It made it seem
like the cat was a robot switching modes.

STARE

DISPLACE

VOCALISATION (GROWL)

STRIKE

It was like watching Robocat vs. Tooncinator.

~~~
ajxs
I like to think of less complex life forms like fish as being entirely
interrupt-driven state machines. Cats are much more complex machines, capable
of running long-term latent processes, and capable of abstract thinking. How
else can I explain how my old cat found so much enjoyment in pushing things
off tables? The only reasonable explanation is schadenfreude.

~~~
wtetzner
> The only reasonable explanation is schadenfreude.

I think there's another explanation :they're studying gravity.

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macawfish
Can someone help me find a podcast with a story which I thought was called
called "the cat came back". I've scoured through _This American Life_ episodes
and still can't find it. Maybe it was a different podcast?

Either way it's about a guy who adopts a cat and then finds out, by attaching
a camera, that the cat has other lives.

~~~
MaxGabriel
[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/316/the-cat-came-
back/act-t...](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/316/the-cat-came-back/act-
three-0)

This one?

~~~
macawfish
Unfortunately that's not it, I think the confusion is that I thought I
remembered them playing the same song in the story I'm remembering.

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sytelus
Q: Did the videos reveal any surprises?

A: Cats are seen as relatively lazy, especially compared to dogs. But we saw
that when they were outside, they became superalert. They scanned their
surroundings, sometimes for a half-hour or more on end. And even though cats
are highly territorial, they didn’t always fight with other cats they
encountered. Often, they just sat a couple of meters away from each other for
up to a half an hour. They may have been sizing each other up. Sometimes they
would engage in a greeting, briefly touching noses.

When they were in their homes, the cats spent a lot of time following their
humans around. They liked to be in the same room. A lot of my students were
surprised at how attached cats were to people.

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l0b0
Something similar to the displacement happened with birds during vacation
recently. I was just relaxing on a porch, and one by one groups of birds would
occupy the lawn for a while. It must've been four or five different species,
in groups from one (only the kingfisher) to six or seven finches of some sort.
It seemed strangely orderly, in that each group seemed to stay about the same
amount of time, and none of the groups ever met - the new group would always
swoop in shortly after the last one. There was no bird feed to be had there. I
can't be sure, but it seemed the groups were actually rotating rather than new
ones every time.

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brian_
This reminds me of Mr Lee's cat cam from back in the day. [http://www.mr-lee-
catcam.de/pe_cc_u.htm](http://www.mr-lee-catcam.de/pe_cc_u.htm)

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sys_64738
I'd like to see what and how the camera was attacked to the cat. My cat
wouldn't tolerate anything on their person(?) for anything longer than a
second.

~~~
martin_a
I tried it with my cat and although he is normally very relaxed and handles
even rougher "touches" very well, the action cam really freaked him out.

~~~
55555
Maybe it's more a moral issue than a tactile one and he finds forced
surveillance to be unethical.

~~~
martin_a
Now I love him even more.

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K2L8M11N2
I would pay good money for a cat POV livestream.

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gwern
Another interesting bit of research recently on cat social cognition:
[https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/05/cats-rival-dogs-
many...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/05/cats-rival-dogs-many-tests-
social-smarts-anyone-brave-enough-study-them) Specifically, it parallels OP's
point about cats being attached to humans (although not the terrified-outside
part).

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BasicObject
This method may be helpful studying how destructive domesticated cats are to
local ecosystems.

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ohm
They did this a while back
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOF_2eM4aKM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOF_2eM4aKM)

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rconti
Obligatory "War Kitteh and Denial of Service Dog" from DefCon 2014.

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

~~~
dentemple
Can you summarize this and say what makes it obligatory?

~~~
dogma1138
Some guy hooked WiFi packet capturing and cracking device to a cat and a
signal jammer to a dog.

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syntaxgoonoo
Seems like more of a cat adoration project than a scientific study. Unlike
other cat cam projects there is no mention of domestic cats predatory
behaviour, and how this impacts the environment. Seems like mostly POV for cat
lovers.

~~~
classicsnoot
Remember kids, if it isn't the science you like, it isn't science at all.

For me, the best thing about this person's interview from TFA is their call
for others to do the same. Just like me ubering to school or work is not
science, the mass collection of data points yields opportunities for better
studies down the road.

