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My cat ignores mirrors. He also ignores screens and isn't bothered by audio of dogs or cats. At the same time, he's very alert and will generally spring to atte
by ecdavis 12y ago
My cat ignores mirrors. He also ignores screens and isn't bothered by audio of dogs or cats. At the same time, he's very alert and will generally spring to attention if he hears a dog or cat outside. A few years ago he was introduced to another cat, separated by glass, and his reaction was completely different compared to looking at a mirror. I don't remember the first time he saw a mirror.
I think that cats have a pretty decent idea of what is and isn't real. While a reflection may be interesting in that it looks like another cat, it lacks the accompanying sound and smell of an intruder and is therefore safe to ignore.
On a related note, many years ago my family lived in a house with a lot of bird life in the back yard. There was a family of magpies, a number of chickens and a solitary male guineafowl. While moving in we leaned an old mirror against a fence in the yard and it ended up staying there for years.
Initially, the magpies attempted to fight their reflections but they quickly learned that there was no point. After that they ignored the mirror. The chickens never seemed to notice it in the first place. The guineafowl, though, was most interesting. This is a species that forms flocks in the wild. This particular guineafowl, though, had been separated from its flock for years and was completely alone. To begin with it had the same reaction as the magpies and attempted to fight itself in the mirror. Over time, however, this behavior stopped. Instead of fighting, it would simply stand in front of the mirror for hours on end.
- aetherson 12y agoMy cat also totally ignores mirrors, screens, etc. And she completely flips out when she sees another cat through the window, fifty feet away. I'm pretty confused by this. I don't think that her sense of smell or hearing is so acute that she can smell or hear the other cat through glass from so far away. She doesn't have binocular vision at that distance, I would assume. Parallax? How does she determine that that's a real cat while cats in mirrors and screens aren't?
- mblakele 12y agoCats have much better long-range vision than short-range. Long range they are probably better than you think. Short of about a foot they don't really focus at all, and rely on their whiskers. Like most predators they key in on movement. Taken together I think these features explain the behavior you've seen.
- ecdavis 12y agoAgain, I can only offer anecdotes. My cat will react to unusual movement outside a nearby window even when he's curled up with his eyes closed. I remember one instance in particular where I was playing music fairly loudly. He had his eyes closed and was lying down facing away from the window when a dog walked past. His ears perked up and he immediately got up and looked around. I can only assume it was the sound that tipped him off. It's not necessarily that their hearing/smell/vision is so much better than ours, but rather that it's more specifically evolved for their role as predators (as another poster pointed out).
- sliverstorm 12y ago- it would simply stand in front of the mirror for hours on end - "I'm so alone..."
- gwern 12y ago_Ringworld_, anyone?