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Study on quality of sleep when pet cats choose location of slumber
- hprotagonist 5y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20220309204156/https://www.spoon-tamago.com/2022/03/09/cat-sleep-study/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220309204156/https://www.spoon...
- gmuslera 5y agoLooks like Ig Nobel Awards material, not because its intrinsic value or being interesting, but somewhat seem to follow the pattern.
- DicIfTEx 5y agoIndeed it is - https://improbable.com/2022/03/19/sleeping-next-to-the-cat-wherever-the-cat-chooses-to-sleep/ https://improbable.com/2022/03/19/sleeping-next-to-the-cat-w...
- trhway 5y agoShe has 5 cats. I doubt that her sleep and well being can be better than already is.
- l-lousy 5y agoWhat a wonderful experiment, not only does it sound fun but also slightly educational
- ascar 5y agoHer being Japanese and being used to sleeping essentially on the floor certainly helped. Pretty sure the result would have been different for us westerners being used to sleep in soft beds. Couldn't help but laugh out loud when seeing the pictures. Especially since I thought at first it's about the cat lying on different spots on the bed, which can restrict your movement.
- bitwize 5y agoJapanese people don't typically sleep on the floor, though they may sleep on mattresses placed on the floor (rather than suspended by a bedframe and box spring).
- mobiledev2014 5y agoThe poster you’re responding to said “essentially” on the floor. Having stayed at a traditional ryokan I’d say that’s an accurate description. It’s a very comfortable floor! But very different from western beds.
- grapeskin 5y agoSleeping on a futon (thick blanket, not a mattress) on the floor is pretty typical. Apparently bed vs floor is about half and half (blue is floor and red is mattress in this chart). [1] [1] https://tg-uchi.jp/topics/3807 https://tg-uchi.jp/topics/3807
- solarmist 5y agoI assume parent was talking about futons on tatami which don’t compare well with mattresses, more like cushions on a soft floor.
- suction 5y agoWhich the majority of Japanese people don't sleep on. They sleep in beds.
- rwmj 5y agoMaybe in Tokyo, but not out in the countryside in my experience.
- cthalupa 5y agoOf Japan's population of roughly 127 million, about 118 million of them live in urban/suburban areas. Hosei University, where this researcher is from, is in Tokyo. So in absolute terms the statement that "The majority of Japanese people sleep in beds" is certainly correct. In context of the article, where it is being claimed that sleeping on a futon on top of a tatami mat is preparation for sleeping on the floor (and really, it isn't, but we'll ignore that), it is also valid. The majority of the Japanese populace in Japan sleeps on beds, and this researcher likely does as well. From anecdotal experience, most modern homes I have been in in Japan have only one, if any, tatami rooms. They are not used as bedrooms, except perhaps in the 'family having a sleepover in the tatami room' sort of fashion. Modern apartments seem to have none.
- remram 5y agoDoes her cat not consistently sleep in her bed? Both now and with the multiple generations of cats I grew up with, they would come sleep between my legs almost every night. For some of them, they would already be there when I get to bed, and come get me if I'm up too late. Maybe they were running the experiment on me...
- rvbissell 5y agoOne of my cats does the same. How does this affect your sleep? I have to turn left/back/right every so often in my sleep, and it disturbs the cat, and then me.
- BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 5y agoOur cat decides whose bed he sleeps in, usually next to my legs. He moves without fuss when I move. Mornings he likes to be on top of me. As a kitten he would be under the covers next to me.
- beebeepka 5y agoFor a while I used to have 4 kittens sleep on the bed with me. Man, was I super careful. I didn't have to be as cautious when it was just their mother next to me
- fullstop 5y agoWe have four cats and one of them very much wants to be in the bed with me on a nightly basis. The other ones also do, to some extent, but the one that I let in will destroy things in an attempt to enter if the door is closed. Once in, she's polite and sleeps at the end of the bed or on my legs if she's feeling a bit more affectionate that night. I don't mind having her in the bed. Two of the remaining three are No Fun to have around when I'm trying to sleep. One will wake up very early and start knocking things off of my night stand in an attempt to get me to feed her. The other one will go into POWER GROOMING mode as soon as he gets into the bed. It's loud, his breath isn't the best, and he won't stop. He grooms himself, thoroughly, for what seems like an eternity. To save myself the headache, I just kick these two out and they will find somewhere else to sleep. The last one doesn't come upstairs often, but he's not annoying to have around when he does. It's easy to say that "a cat is a cat" but they really do have their own habits and personalities.
- skeletonjelly 5y agoI was hoping this was going to be about how cats affect quality of human sleep (for selfish reasons)
- aasasd 5y agoThere's a folk belief (or maybe a legend of such belief) that when moving into a new house, one should let in the cat first, observe where they choose the resting place, and promptly install the bed there. I guess those people restricted the cat to the bedroom in the experiment, because the instruction mentioned the ‘corner’ where the cat rests, not just any place. Conveniently in this context, though, olden rural houses here mostly just had one big room, due to heating considerations in the northern winters—so no plopping down in the middle of the bathroom like with some cats I know. While in the OP, the practice was compromised by grossly differing dimensions of the cat and the woman. P.S.: Gotta say, the photos look like from the good old days of planking and such: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kCJp1auybWg/Tmk0MBZaRtI/AAAAAAAABo0/-7w6rRtxfpY/s1600/extreme+batmanning+planking+%252813%2529.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kCJp1auybWg/Tmk0MBZaRtI/AAAAAAAABo...
- cperciva 5y agoThere's a folk belief (or maybe a legend of such belief) that when moving into a new house, one should let in the cat first, observe where they choose the resting place, and promptly install the bed there. It's a very sensible belief! Cats are quite sensitive to drafts, so (especially in days when houses were draftier and lacked central heating) sleeping in the location the cat picks is likely to be much healthier than picking a location at random.
- pengaru 5y agoMy cats would have been insane guides for bed placement. They largely gravitated to wherever the sun shined the most on the floor, and one of them liked to jump into the fridge and nap in there. It was a fun party trick to have a cat abruptly push open and exit the refrigerator in the middle of dinner or a board game, but clearly not the best guide for where to put the bed.
- jeffh 5y agoWait though ... how can you make that assumption without actually testing it? For science!
- fencepost 5y agoIf I'm sleeping accessible to the cats, it means I fell asleep in an armchair (horrible bastard cat papa doesn't let Mr Sneezy the Hair Chewer in the bedroom) and the preferred feline sleep location is curled up on a blanket on my lap. That or curled up on top of the Comcast box (DVR?) which might possibly have a larger cardboard box on top of it to provide a comfy warm spot....
- jrjarrett 5y agoFrom reading the title I expected it to be a study along the lines of “if your cat decides to sleep on your face, then your sleep will be of lesser quality than if it decides to sleep at the foot of the bed.”
- nullc 5y agoFrom the title I expected it to be a study on the quality of the cat's sleep based on it choosing the location vs being assigned a sleeping location.
- whateveracct 5y agoCats spend most of their lives asleep. To sleep with cats is to be amongst experts beyond human ability. It's the best.
- mxwsn 5y agoVery amusing. Though, she concludes there's no difference based on average sleep quality, but the variance is sizably larger, and I personally care quite a bit about sleep quality consistency.
- raunometsa 5y agoWhile it's probably impractical to choose your spot for the night based on your cat's, I think there's actually something we can learn from here: "Cats will sleep in a variety of different locations, each likely the combination of factors such as mood, warmth, light and coziness." [emphasis mine] And I think we – humans – should also follow our mood more often in our everyday lives – even things like sprint planning or building our startups. I feel there's something hidden in the feeling of how you feel (your mood). For example, you look at these 5 tasks in your backlog and choose what you want to work on based on your mood/excitement/feeling. Maybe the level of excitement you feel for the task is a message from your "unconscious" mind saying that this task is a good one to do right now? And even if that's not the case, you'll just feel better doing a task that you feel excitement for rather than the one you don't feel like doing right now. Advatages? 1) you just feel better (which I don't have to explain why that is good for you) and 2) you probably finish the task quicker and with a better quality
- ganzuul 5y agoIt would be weird if there was no intelligence to e.g. how the chemical hijack of love relates to evolution. With how strong it is, and how unforgiving natural selection is, there must be a long-range correlation outside immediate perception similar to how flocks of animals know when it is time to migrate. We definitely keep a lot of what we actually know about the environment out from our daily driver philosophy.
- Godel_unicode 5y agoWe need to think carefully before invoking natural selection too strongly. The fact that it has much less emphasis on activities taken on after we stop procreation is a huge blindspot for one thing. Someone who invents the cure for cancer but has no children is considered a failure by natural selection. Someone who never contributes anything to society but has 15 kids is conversely considered a huge success.
- ganzuul 5y agoWell in terms of evolution there needs to be a set of instructions that gets passed on. If those instructions can mutate, we have evolution. Perhaps it isn't genetic code that gets passed on, but e.g. cultural inventions. That said, these biological circuits that we are considering get replicated in whatever environment that they exist in. Love may lead to other things than biological reproduction. Our lore regarding the human, personal experience of love and what to do with it also mutates and evolves. A poem then, may take the place of the greatest invention.
- suction 5y agoThere is nothing scientific about this "study". But another good example of what I call the "Cargo cult science" approach so often found in Japan: "We use meters to collect data and make graphs and wear lab coats, so we're doing the science!" It's like the Japanese watched a movie of scientists doing science, and just recreated what they saw without understanding anything that goes on beyond the surface. Why is this not science? No control group, no elimination of millions of variables that could affect the animal's choice of location, etc.
- sdze 5y agoWhy is it bad? It could be the beginning of a hypothesis?!
- kristopolous 5y ago"not yet" science is more appropriate. Some things graduate to rigor, most things don't. Gotta do cheap explorations and see if it has legs unless you have infinite time
- Melatonic 5y agoIt is rumoured that if you give a person enough alcohol they too will be able to access their inner cat-based mechanism for choosing slumber locations!
- beardyw 5y agoBy coincidence the cat was also doing a study trying to predict where the human would sleep that night, and going there first. Got it right 100% of the time.
- hackernewds 5y agoWhile it's quirky and interesting, I'm surprised this qualitative-only impact qualified for a dissertation
- sammalloy 5y agoThe most amazing thing to me is how a deeply sleeping cat can go from comatose to actively engaging in a task in a matter of a second if it is disturbed to the point of awakening. It’s truly incredible. My anecdotal understanding is that the closest humans can get to this kind of feline state of ready alertness is in war time, but I think that has more to do with sleep deprivation.
- dm319 5y agoThat's a sweet article, but probably those findings relate to the age of the person doing the studying. A good bed should support your spine so that it is aligned while sleeping, and the comfort layer needs to allow for circulation to occur in the tissue you are lying on. If these factors are not correct you'll wake up with back pain, or poorly rested (due to excessive movement overnight to relieve poor circulation). I'm surprised they didn't find a worsening of sleep quality not sleeping on their bed. We have a cat and she definitely shifts her sleeping place every few days/week. Another theory I have is that it is a natural way of managing fleas, which will die off with no animal sleeping in the spot for several days.
- kwelstr 5y agoThis! I know for a fact that my cat changes sleeping places if he detects fleas and will not move back to the old spot for a couple of weeks. Flea management from a cat perspective.
- sitta 5y agoI do the opposite for my cat. He's a very affectionate boy. He likes to sleep with us, but we'd prefer he didn't because we have a small bed and it makes our sleep worse. So, my solution was to snuggle with him on our guest bed a half hour or so before we go to bed. Then, when I get up, he stays on the guest bed and sleeps the rest of the night. You might think that he might just do this out of habit now, but if we go out in the evening and come back late enough that he doesn't get his snuggle time, he almost always shows up on our bed after we've gone to sleep.
- stevage 5y agoHe probably just wants a warm bed to sleep in.
- kbutler 5y agoDoesn't fit the data - if he's already been sleeping, his bed will be warm, and he wouldn't have the incentive to get up and change beds.
- sitta 5y agoI think there is some truth in what stevage said. Usually when we come home the cats get up and are unsettled due to the change in routine. I try to get them settled on the guest bed again before going to bed myself, but this doesn't always work if they're really amped up. If I am able to get them settled, he won't sleep with us (the other cat isn't as interested in sleeping with us), but, if I can't, he'll likely show up in our bed later. So, it is likely just a matter of getting him comfortable sleeping somewhere warm so that he isn't interested in moving to our bed. Edit: Having said that, before I started this routine, he _would_ come up to bed if he was sleeping somewhere else already on a normal night in. So, I don't know.
- omegalulw 5y agoOne thing that always freaks me out is how do you trust your cat to not scratch your face or maul your eyes out while you sleep (accidently or otherwise)?
- anotheraccount9 5y ago"For example, the researcher’s journal often described feelings of excitement and adventure in not knowing where she would be sleeping that night." I will attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail this year. So I'll be sleeping at a different place almost every night for almost 5 months. Will I sleep better? Edit: I cannot find her dissertation.
- yellow_lead 5y agoYes but because you'll be incredibly tired :)
- mauvehaus 5y agoDepends. The continuous northbound party crowd sometimes stays up later than other folks might like. If you're in a shelter with somebody who snores loudly it can be iffy (earplugs weigh nothing. My favorites are the Howard Leight MAX with a cord. If you're a back sleeper, you can probably be less picky and go with a more rigid option). Occasionally the ground is so wretched that it'll screw up your sleeping (hammockers have different problems, but I tented, so I can't speak to that personally). Some people report shelter mice keeping them up. I've not had that experience. The foul weather rule for shelters is "there's always room for one more". That sometimes means everybody is crammed in and if one person moves, it turns into a Newton's cradle situation. Also, I don't know how old you are, but I've found the shelter floors have gotten a lot harder as I've gotten older. What I slept well enough, but not quite comfortably on on a Z-rest at 20 is now something I need a NeoAir (or equivalent) to get a good night of sleep and not wake up with lumps on my hips from the hard floor. The ground is much softer unless it's hard-packed mineral soil. Apart from those things and the occasional storm, etc, you can pretty much count on sleeping like you're dead.
- pstoll 5y agotldr: “scientific” study with N=1 (author / researcher) draws useless conclusions, but because it contains “cats pics” gains some attention.