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CatMeows: A Publicly-Available Dataset of Cat Vocalizations (2020)
- chaps 5y ago(edit: apparently I'm just bad at websites) What's with the signup requirement to download a dataset like this?
- grp000 5y agoDidn't get any on my end. Using Firefox in the US.
- jagged-chisel 5y agoDitto. Almost. iOS, Firefox, US, no signup
- scoopertrooper 5y agoNo signup with Chrome, People's Republic of Oceania.
- jerrysievert 5y agonone on safari/macos.
- oblib 5y agoI do kinda want to download those so I can screw with our cats.
- ecommerceguy 5y agonah try this instead. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=videos+for+cats+to+watch https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=videos+for+cats...
- bingu 5y agoGreat and fun idea, but the resolution of these files is incredibly low.
- gregsadetsky 5y agoYou're not kidding, they're 8 kHz i.e. ""phone resolution""... Interesting, this seems to be related to the Bluetooth microphone that they used: "Thus, we adopted a very small and lightweight microphone placed under the cat’s throat through a collar" The microphone is described in their paper [0]: "The signal is transmitted via Bluetooth [...] at a sampling frequency of 8 kHz." Also: "As a consequence, the actual range of frequencies we could rely on is 0–4 kHz. We expected that the fundamental frequency emitted by cats falls within the range, whereas some higher-frequency harmonics were likely to be cut" [0] https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/9/8/543/htm https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/9/8/543/htm
- Tabular-Iceberg 5y agoSounds like they were over-complicating things. Simply pointing a shotgun mic at the cat from a distance would have done the trick. I don’t blame them, though, we do it all the time in software development.
- azalemeth 5y agoMost outdoor shotgun mics I've seen have a nice furry wind screen affectionately known (in en-gb at least) as a "dead rat". Most indoor shotgun mics I've seen also have a double life as outdoor shotgun mics, and therefore come inside a 'dead rat'. My cat will investigate anything pointed at him, and I'm pretty sure would love to see how dead the dead rat really is... Rather than taking aim at the sampling rate, if anything I'd be more interested in being sure that they'd sampled up to the end of the frequency spectrum that cats can actually hear -- for birds at least the >30kHz part is important.
- nexuist 5y agoI'm very confused as to why. According to Finder these have an 8kHz sample rate? How did they find a mic that bad? Or is it intentional? Is there some scientific usefulness that would make these clips easier for a machine to analyze? I really don't know if there would be, since a higher resolution clip could just be sampled again if you really wanted something lower. It is very unfortunate, but I'm grateful that someone performed this experiment as ethically as they could think of and made the data available for all to use.
- adfm 5y agoBlack Mirror thought: Given the popularity of cats and that things like buzz pollination exist, it would be interesting to see if these sounds affect human behavior in some meaningful way.
- ctoth 5y agoThis reminds me of some people working on a cat translator[0] The paper this dataset links to [1] seems to be using statistical techniques to compare spectrograms of meows, something that seems pretty easy with fastaudio[2]. [0]: https://github.com/FrogBoss74/RealCatTranslator https://github.com/FrogBoss74/RealCatTranslator [1]: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/9/8/543 https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/9/8/543 [2]: https://github.com/fastaudio/fastaudio https://github.com/fastaudio/fastaudio
- WalterBright 5y agoHaving a cat, I have worked out a sophisticated translation lookup table: cat[] = meow meow meow meow meow translation[] = feedme feedme feedme feedme feedme So far, it is 100% accurate.
- phowat 5y agoIn my case here it means either : feed me , pet me or play with this toy with me . I have to try these options to know what it really means.
- monkeybutton 5y agoThere's also: Let me outside and let me inside. My mistake was putting the food bowl beside the back door so I have to guess which one it is, food or out.
- patrakov 5y agoWell, with my cat in the childhood the translation was easy. Two meows (probably learned from "mama" = mom) meant that the cat wants attention from my mother. A single long meow meant that the cat wants to walk outside (well, this was specifically trained by meowing at the cat at appropriate times). A short meow meant either food or play, depending on the room where the cat is in.
- 5y ago
- sixdimensional 5y agoSomebody needs to tell the guy who made this YouTube video about this: Alugalug cat x the Kiffness https://youtu.be/S61ENc51Z1Q https://youtu.be/S61ENc51Z1Q
- bofh23 5y agoHere’s the original that’s being remixed: I Don't Wanna Be Touched - Meredith Bull FULL SONG OUT NOW https://youtu.be/H3Y-A4Ahkto https://youtu.be/H3Y-A4Ahkto Channel: Meredith Bull Published on May 2, 2021
- DaveExeter 5y agoThey work! At least the "F.." ones do. A bit of clicking and before long I had one cat on my lap and one atop the desk inspecting the speakers.
- stewbrew 5y agoThe file naming pattern is surprising: C_NNNNN_BB_SS_OOOOO_RXX Why would you place context before, but breed, sex, and owner after the cat id?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 29athrowaway 5y agoThis cat is not in the dataset: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7x_lWJNnNg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7x_lWJNnNg
- fctorial 5y agoYes it is.
- derefr 5y agoReminds me of this cat, who has been trained to express themselves via button-presses: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGMTesZlKa0Lokb7ZNqOJXQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGMTesZlKa0Lokb7ZNqOJXQ
- TwoBit 5y agoI'm not convinced.
- derefr 5y agoThe video where the cat begs (through the buttons) to go outside in the rain, takes one step outside, comes back in, and immediately complains (through the buttons) about the rain, is pretty convincing to me. Also interesting is its use of the "angry" button in response to not getting its way, or having something irritating it, or when it's clearly frustrated by not having its needs understood.
- StavrosK 5y agoMaybe there's more in videos I didn't watch, but I watched 5-6 videos and the cat seems to be pressing buttons randomly. It doesn't seem to correspond to anything it does.
- supercheetah 5y agoI don't think it's completely random, not some of the time, anyway. That's not to say that it's deliberate, though, either. There's a number of videos in which she'll barely touch or just hover her paw over a button, pause for a while, take it away, and then proceed to push a different button.
- derefr 5y agoWatch the older videos, not the newer ones. AFIACT, the videos are a kind of progress log for demonstrating the cat's learning in different concepts. The older videos focused on [demonstration of] learning of more "core" concepts ("food", "water", "pets", "outside", etc.); but since these concepts are now fully "taught", the owner seems to feel no more need to film the cat communicating these simpler core messages, except when they form an interesting sequence or larger idea. Instead, the newer videos focus on learning of more fringe concepts — ideas that "come up" less often — and so progress is slower in these. (Note that, watching the videos chronologically, the number of buttons the cat has available grows quite a bit over time. I think the owner thinks that the cat now understands the general concept of associating things-to-be-communicated with presses of word-buttons, and so feels that they can now feed them new concepts faster.)
- dirtyid 5y agoDoes a typical speaker capture all the wavelengths that would cause recognition? For some reason my cat only responds to cat vocalizations avidly from the fancy AV equipment.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y agoCats can hear up to 64k. Recording at 8k is like bad phone quality for a human.
- pkdpic_y9k 5y agoThis project made my day :3
- interfixus 5y agoJust played a sample of the samples for a congregation of cats residing here. I got four ignores and one stare of bored contempt.
- sovande 5y agoCats & dogs mostly communicate with body language so this is of limited use. A translator model would need video for training. I can’t wait for the day when I can point my iPhone camera at a dog and learn what it tries to communicate. In the meantime we can learn the fascinating language of dogs, http://en.turid-rugaas.no/calming-signals---the-art-of-survival.html http://en.turid-rugaas.no/calming-signals---the-art-of-survi...
- ismaildonmez 5y agoNo idea why you are being downvoted but cats do not talk to each other either. It’s known that their meow evolved from the baby cries, to sound needy and annoying enough that you pay attention.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y agoCats don't meow, but they do hiss and yowl at each other. They also nose/face bump. And make specific noises in heat. When our current cat was in heat before being spayed I recorded the sound on my phone and played it back to her. She looked very confused. Maybe I should try it on other cats to see what happens. She's also fascinated by one particular jingly wind chime ring tone and will follow it around until she gets bored.
- tdy721 5y agoHissing cat? They will hiss at one another... Animals do not talk. My family tried to sit me down as a kid and explain this to me. “The dog does not hear english” It’s wrong; they talk. Body language speaks. Cat language? Nah, that’s a bit silly.
- codetrotter 5y agoSome birds have regional dialects. Do cats from different parts of the world speak different languages?
- 867-5309 5y agoTexan cats greet with "meowdy"
- IndySun 5y agoNo meow, I came to get a moody silence and unblinking stare translated, alas...
- aaron695 5y agoThe classic homebrew version - http://www.brewery.org/cm3/CatsMeow3.html http://www.brewery.org/cm3/CatsMeow3.html Somewhat interesting we could get more collated homebrew recipes in 1997 than real cats meows in 2021
- gremlinsinc 5y agoThe aliens have been visiting for centuries, but they've been in talks with the true overlords: Cats.
- aliasEli 5y agoIn normal wild cats only kittens meow. Domesticated cats will only meow when they are trying to communicate with humans. Adult domesticated cats will communicate with other cats in many ways: - with smell, your cat spraying everything is just marking its territory - hissing or growling, even very small very small cats can be very good at deterring much bigger cats - when female cats are in heat they make a lot of noise but i don't think that does qualify as meowing - most cat communication is non-verbal, we probably don't understand much of it If have listened to several of these sound recordings and they only sample a tiny fraction of cat communications.