Cats love illusory boxes too
News you can use: A citizen science project has found that cats not only like to climb into real boxes, if you paint the illusion of a square on the ground they will prefer that spot as well.
The illusion at hand was the Kanizsa square: four pacman-like shapes orientated to look like they’re forming four corners of a square, inducing the viewer to perceive a square that isn’t actually there.
…Cognitive ethologist Gabriella Smith from the City University of New York and colleagues recruited humans to set up floor objects for their feline lordlings to choose from – a taped square, a visual illusion of a square, and the same components as the visual illusion, but not arranged to produce a square (the control).
The cat owners were required to film the cats’ response under reasonably controlled conditions to avoid influencing the animals’ choices (this involved wearing sunglasses, too). While over 500 pet cats were originally enrolled, the final data set shrunk down to 30 citizen scientists who managed to complete all the necessary trials.
…”The cats in this study stood or sat in the Kanizsa and square stimuli more often than the Kanizsa control, revealing susceptibility to illusory contours and supporting our hypothesis that cats treat an illusory square as they do a real square,” they found.
Need I add there because of the small sample there is a lot of uncertainty about these results. Though as far as the cats are concerned, there is no uncertainty at all: They rule, and their human servants shall obey.
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News you can use: A citizen science project has found that cats not only like to climb into real boxes, if you paint the illusion of a square on the ground they will prefer that spot as well.
The illusion at hand was the Kanizsa square: four pacman-like shapes orientated to look like they’re forming four corners of a square, inducing the viewer to perceive a square that isn’t actually there.
…Cognitive ethologist Gabriella Smith from the City University of New York and colleagues recruited humans to set up floor objects for their feline lordlings to choose from – a taped square, a visual illusion of a square, and the same components as the visual illusion, but not arranged to produce a square (the control).
The cat owners were required to film the cats’ response under reasonably controlled conditions to avoid influencing the animals’ choices (this involved wearing sunglasses, too). While over 500 pet cats were originally enrolled, the final data set shrunk down to 30 citizen scientists who managed to complete all the necessary trials.
…”The cats in this study stood or sat in the Kanizsa and square stimuli more often than the Kanizsa control, revealing susceptibility to illusory contours and supporting our hypothesis that cats treat an illusory square as they do a real square,” they found.
Need I add there because of the small sample there is a lot of uncertainty about these results. Though as far as the cats are concerned, there is no uncertainty at all: They rule, and their human servants shall obey.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Yep, dogs have owners, cats have staff.
Chris-
Good stuff.
(That’s what my front door mat says.)
“Reducing Hole for the Cat. When will he stop?”
Catpusic, March 2020
https://youtu.be/5Cdv932eoU0
2:01
Jordan Peterson / Akira the Don
Rule #12, “Pet A Cat When You Encounter One”
From “12 Rules for Life”
February 2018
https://youtu.be/LAIQNwCbf0Y
4:11
Funny. My daughters Siamese cat ‘knows’, that when any dresser or kitchen drawer is opened, that she will fit, and in she goes, even climbing up to the open drawer.
Must be a Siamese thing.
At one time daughter sent me a youtube of a couple of Bengal Tigers, in captivity, playing with large cardboard boxes, sizes such as you would get with a new freezer or refrigerator. The silly cat jumped right in and sat there very smug looking, then the play time with the boxes began. A real hoot.
“If I fits, I sits”.
wayne – It’s amazing what you can get grant money for
Col–
That, is hilarious.
i can’t resist….
(research has been accelerated under the harris-biden adm.)
“Reducing Transparent Tube for the Cat”
CatPusic April 2021
https://youtu.be/zmPKxV_zLJY
3:17
Let’s be real, here.
” . . . recruited humans to set up floor objects for their feline lordlings to choose from . . . ”
“The cat owners were required to film the cats’ response . . . ”
No ambiguity, here.
Curious what a cat would do with an M.C. Escher “box”.
Robert noted: “News you can use: A citizen science project has found that cats not only like to climb into real boxes, if you paint the illusion of a square on the ground they will prefer that spot as well.”
A citizen engineering project has looked into cats:
An Engineer’s Guide to Cats
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHXBL6bzAR4 (7 minutes)
These engineers did not experiment with illusory squares, but they do confirm the box theory, among other phenomena. We might also get an idea of what a cat would do with an M.C. Escher “box”.