5 ms·

Scientists have studied the behavior of cats sitting on squares (2021)

71 points by Tomte 3y ago

bediger4000 3y ago
Cats are susceptible to some optical illusions is what I take away. In a larger sense, optical illusions mean we can't "trust our eyes" as many exhort us to do. Does this mean those urging us to trust our eyes are hucksters or trying to manipulate us?
- bckr 3y ago
  The reason we have a word for optical illusions is because they are outliers. They represent examples of when your optical sense needs to be checked against other perceptions.
  - bediger4000 3y ago
    I'd buy that except that the umbrella term "optical illusion" covers a lot of ground from simple physical things like a blind spot, through those color inverting things, to weird ones that involve computation, where you can't see all 16 dots, or the jagged blocks "heal" themselves. Cats perceiving squares is clearly not optical, but rather computational.
- xoa 3y ago
  >In a larger sense, optical illusions mean we can't "trust our eyes" as many exhort us to do. No, that's not what it (necessarily) means. A lot of optical illusions are specifically engineered to exploit biology or evolutionary gaps, some of which are due to path dependency but others which are likely very sensible in the ultra typical non-synthetic non-adversarial environment. As the article here says: >“Many animals are evolved to perform this sort of perception,” said Smith. “It’s probably to do with navigating the environment. You need to know when not to walk into a tree or off a cliff.” Another way to think of this is "ability to perform high speed object inference from partial information", and it makes a lot of sense this would be pretty important. Much of the natural world is full of woods and grass land where important objects are only seen through a 3D overlay of grass/leaf/branch cover. The examples there might be real but even more so are probably biological ones, like "huh I think that's the shape of a predator hiding there". That's the sort of thing that'd have some real evolutionary pressure. I think we generally take for granted being able to infer what something is from highly minimal information with great reliability normally but it's not like it's a given. So "trust, but verify" while also recognizing sometimes it's better to err on the side of caution. For technologists doing human UI design there are probably usability and safety considerations related to some of this too, designers can make use of negative space in useful and harmful ways. Finally it's fine to just enjoy optical illusions and magic tricks and so on both for their cleverness and what they reveal about ourselves without leaping to some sort of silly "hucksters/manipulators" thing.
whitmank 3y ago
This article loads fine but when I scroll down it turns into a custom 404 screen? Anyone else?
anfractuosity 3y ago
Haha, not heard of cats liking sitting on squares before. I wonder if they prefer those to other angular shapes. Curious if they'd move their sitting position around to sit in projected squares too.
- noman-land 3y ago
  It is really hilarious. Put a piece of paper on the floor? The cat will sit on it. Draw a circle on the floor? The cat will sit in it.
- bena 3y ago
  We have two cats and they exhibit this behavior even with circles made with limbs. Like if I'm sitting at a table with my arms in front of me, one cat in particular will see it as an invitation to plop himself in the circle. Sometimes he doesn't wait for my arms, he'll just stand in front of me until I either make a circle for him or I move him. And sometimes, when I'm sleeping on my stomach and I'm doing that figure 4 thing with my legs, I'll wake up with a cat having a nap in the "leg circle".
huppeldepup 3y ago
Paper: https://gwern.net/doc/cat/psychology/2021-smith-2.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/cat/psychology/2021-smith-2.pdf Edit: check out the main page: https://gwern.net/ https://gwern.net/
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  Offtopic: an adaptive 1-, 2-, 3-column layout in the wild. Wild.
  - gwern 3y ago
    I'm surprised you noticed! I think you may be the first I've seen. Most people just think it's a 1 vs 2 column layout; but we didn't find that quite satisfactory... If you guys like cat optical illusions, they're susceptible to a few others as well, like the rotating-snake one: https://gwern.net/doc/cat/psychology/index#regaiolli-et-al-2019-section https://gwern.net/doc/cat/psychology/index#regaiolli-et-al-2... https://gwern.net/doc/cat/psychology/index#szenczi-et-al-2018-section https://gwern.net/doc/cat/psychology/index#szenczi-et-al-201...
sebastianconcpt 3y ago
This is only a mystery to those who can't speak catesse. They are playing 4D chess with you and winning. Joke aside, this has to be linked to their superb spatial cognition and maybe their telemetry as they are natural ninjas.
- groovy2shoes 3y ago
  Cats, of course, speak Catalan.
  - sebastianconcpt 3y ago
    Meoaw sure about that.
neilv 3y ago
> Out of 500 cats and owners, only 30 completed the entire trial, Now test the 500 owners for toxoplasmosis, and correlate.
- DrammBA 3y ago
  what correlation would you expect to see?
  - Supermancho 3y ago
    To see if it's the Toxo influencing the behavior. Toxo has known effects already in animals.
    - DrammBA 3y ago
      but you said to test the 500 owners, how would an infected owner effect the cats behavior?
      - neilv 3y ago
        Look at how toxoplasmosis in humans affected both enlisting and follow-through on the study.
a_e_k 3y ago
> Smith said that she’s also curious how this research would translate to non-domesticated cats like big, wild cats. “We don’t know whether wild cats are susceptible to that illusion, because they may not encounter corners and walls the same way,” Smith said. Given that big cats behave with (proportionally larger) boxes much the same way as domestic cats: https://youtube.com/watch?v=J11uu8L8FTY https://youtube.com/watch?v=J11uu8L8FTY I am going to hypothesize that it would translate quite well.
tim333 3y ago
Seems to also apply to their 3d equivalent, boxes, and to larger cat species. https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=cats%20boxes&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fqph.cf2.quoracdn.net%2Fmain-qimg-4ccbee3fcfa45f6a38c35009249f6cf7.webp&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.quora.com%2FWhy-cats-are-obsessed-with-boxes&docid=qlr-XB3mrofmZM&tbnid=u0ExWvi9kLXjEM&vet=12ahUKEwj3s5--oeOFAxVcgv0HHTnaCKAQM3oECF0QAA..i&w=560&h=527&hcb=2&ved=2ahUKEwj3s5--oeOFAxVcgv0HHTnaCKAQM3oECF0QAA https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=cats%20boxes&imgurl=https%... My guess is the function is two fold - camouflage and protection from cat attackers like dogs, and camouflage for pouncing on prey - mice, bits of string etc.
- krackers 3y ago
  It remains an open problem whether this generalizes 4-dimensional surfaces as well.
  - utensil4778 3y ago
    Maybe when a cat is sat still staring into the void, they're actually perceiving a 4D box
plusplusungood 3y ago
Funny, a kid at my son's science fair did this for their project. I don't recollect if he had a bibliography...
whartung 3y ago
I would think this would be old news. "Cat, get off of the table." "I'm not on the table, I'm on the placemat." Cat logic.
djmips 3y ago
My small dog likes to sit on squares but maybe that's because we have a hardwood floor and the squares in this case are thin pieces of square foam and they are comfortable. But it is funny seeing the dog sitting several meters away from the kitchen table at dinner on this little square island.

71 points by Tomte 3y ago

Cats are susceptible to some optical illusions is what I take away. In a larger sense, optical illusions mean we can't "trust our eyes" as many exhort us to do. Does this mean those urging us to trust our eyes are hucksters or trying to manipulate us?

bckr 3y ago
The reason we have a word for optical illusions is because they are outliers. They represent examples of when your optical sense needs to be checked against other perceptions.
- bediger4000 3y ago
  I'd buy that except that the umbrella term "optical illusion" covers a lot of ground from simple physical things like a blind spot, through those color inverting things, to weird ones that involve computation, where you can't see all 16 dots, or the jagged blocks "heal" themselves. Cats perceiving squares is clearly not optical, but rather computational.
xoa 3y ago
>In a larger sense, optical illusions mean we can't "trust our eyes" as many exhort us to do. No, that's not what it (necessarily) means. A lot of optical illusions are specifically engineered to exploit biology or evolutionary gaps, some of which are due to path dependency but others which are likely very sensible in the ultra typical non-synthetic non-adversarial environment. As the article here says: >“Many animals are evolved to perform this sort of perception,” said Smith. “It’s probably to do with navigating the environment. You need to know when not to walk into a tree or off a cliff.” Another way to think of this is "ability to perform high speed object inference from partial information", and it makes a lot of sense this would be pretty important. Much of the natural world is full of woods and grass land where important objects are only seen through a 3D overlay of grass/leaf/branch cover. The examples there might be real but even more so are probably biological ones, like "huh I think that's the shape of a predator hiding there". That's the sort of thing that'd have some real evolutionary pressure. I think we generally take for granted being able to infer what something is from highly minimal information with great reliability normally but it's not like it's a given. So "trust, but verify" while also recognizing sometimes it's better to err on the side of caution. For technologists doing human UI design there are probably usability and safety considerations related to some of this too, designers can make use of negative space in useful and harmful ways. Finally it's fine to just enjoy optical illusions and magic tricks and so on both for their cleverness and what they reveal about ourselves without leaping to some sort of silly "hucksters/manipulators" thing.

whitmank 3y ago

This article loads fine but when I scroll down it turns into a custom 404 screen? Anyone else?

anfractuosity 3y ago

Haha, not heard of cats liking sitting on squares before. I wonder if they prefer those to other angular shapes. Curious if they'd move their sitting position around to sit in projected squares too.

noman-land 3y ago
It is really hilarious. Put a piece of paper on the floor? The cat will sit on it. Draw a circle on the floor? The cat will sit in it.
bena 3y ago
We have two cats and they exhibit this behavior even with circles made with limbs. Like if I'm sitting at a table with my arms in front of me, one cat in particular will see it as an invitation to plop himself in the circle. Sometimes he doesn't wait for my arms, he'll just stand in front of me until I either make a circle for him or I move him. And sometimes, when I'm sleeping on my stomach and I'm doing that figure 4 thing with my legs, I'll wake up with a cat having a nap in the "leg circle".

huppeldepup 3y ago

Paper: https://gwern.net/doc/cat/psychology/2021-smith-2.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/cat/psychology/2021-smith-2.pdf Edit: check out the main page: https://gwern.net/ https://gwern.net/

justsomehnguy 3y ago
Offtopic: an adaptive 1-, 2-, 3-column layout in the wild. Wild.
- gwern 3y ago
  I'm surprised you noticed! I think you may be the first I've seen. Most people just think it's a 1 vs 2 column layout; but we didn't find that quite satisfactory... If you guys like cat optical illusions, they're susceptible to a few others as well, like the rotating-snake one: https://gwern.net/doc/cat/psychology/index#regaiolli-et-al-2019-section https://gwern.net/doc/cat/psychology/index#regaiolli-et-al-2... https://gwern.net/doc/cat/psychology/index#szenczi-et-al-2018-section https://gwern.net/doc/cat/psychology/index#szenczi-et-al-201...

sebastianconcpt 3y ago

This is only a mystery to those who can't speak catesse. They are playing 4D chess with you and winning. Joke aside, this has to be linked to their superb spatial cognition and maybe their telemetry as they are natural ninjas.

groovy2shoes 3y ago
Cats, of course, speak Catalan.
- sebastianconcpt 3y ago
  Meoaw sure about that.

neilv 3y ago

> Out of 500 cats and owners, only 30 completed the entire trial, Now test the 500 owners for toxoplasmosis, and correlate.

DrammBA 3y ago
what correlation would you expect to see?
- Supermancho 3y ago
  To see if it's the Toxo influencing the behavior. Toxo has known effects already in animals.
  - DrammBA 3y ago
    but you said to test the 500 owners, how would an infected owner effect the cats behavior?
    - neilv 3y ago
      Look at how toxoplasmosis in humans affected both enlisting and follow-through on the study.

a_e_k 3y ago

> Smith said that she’s also curious how this research would translate to non-domesticated cats like big, wild cats. “We don’t know whether wild cats are susceptible to that illusion, because they may not encounter corners and walls the same way,” Smith said. Given that big cats behave with (proportionally larger) boxes much the same way as domestic cats: https://youtube.com/watch?v=J11uu8L8FTY https://youtube.com/watch?v=J11uu8L8FTY I am going to hypothesize that it would translate quite well.

tim333 3y ago

Seems to also apply to their 3d equivalent, boxes, and to larger cat species. https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=cats%20boxes&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fqph.cf2.quoracdn.net%2Fmain-qimg-4ccbee3fcfa45f6a38c35009249f6cf7.webp&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.quora.com%2FWhy-cats-are-obsessed-with-boxes&docid=qlr-XB3mrofmZM&tbnid=u0ExWvi9kLXjEM&vet=12ahUKEwj3s5--oeOFAxVcgv0HHTnaCKAQM3oECF0QAA..i&w=560&h=527&hcb=2&ved=2ahUKEwj3s5--oeOFAxVcgv0HHTnaCKAQM3oECF0QAA https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=cats%20boxes&imgurl=https%... My guess is the function is two fold - camouflage and protection from cat attackers like dogs, and camouflage for pouncing on prey - mice, bits of string etc.

krackers 3y ago
It remains an open problem whether this generalizes 4-dimensional surfaces as well.
- utensil4778 3y ago
  Maybe when a cat is sat still staring into the void, they're actually perceiving a 4D box

plusplusungood 3y ago

Funny, a kid at my son's science fair did this for their project. I don't recollect if he had a bibliography...

whartung 3y ago

I would think this would be old news. "Cat, get off of the table." "I'm not on the table, I'm on the placemat." Cat logic.

djmips 3y ago

My small dog likes to sit on squares but maybe that's because we have a hardwood floor and the squares in this case are thin pieces of square foam and they are comfortable. But it is funny seeing the dog sitting several meters away from the kitchen table at dinner on this little square island.