While cats ignore human music, they are highly responsive to music written especially for them, says a new study reported in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science.
Cats love cat-appropriate songs. Image credit: © Natali Anderson.
“We are not actually replicating cat sounds. We are trying to create music with a pitch and tempo that appeals to cats,” said Prof Charles Snowdon of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who is the lead author on the study.
“The first step in making cat music is to evaluate music in the context of the animal’s sensory system.”
“Cats, for example, vocalize one octave higher than people, so it is vital to get the pitch right. Then we tried to create music that would have a tempo that was appealing to cats.”
“One sample was based on the tempo of purring, the other on the sucking sound made during nursing.”
In their study, Prof Snowdon and Megan Savage, a Ph.D. student at Binghamton University, brought a laptop and two speakers to the homes of 47 cats (27 males and 20 females) and played four sound samples: Johann Sebastian Bach’s Air on a G String, Gabriel Fauré’s Elegie, and two ‘cat songs’ created by composer David Teie from the University of Maryland School of Music.
The music began after a period of silence, and the cat’s behavior was noted.
Purring, walking toward the speaker and rubbing against it were adjudged positive response, while hissing, arching the back and erecting the fur were negative.
The cats were significantly more positive toward cat music than classical music.
They began the positive response after an average of 110 seconds, compared to 171 seconds for the human music.
“The slow responses reflected the situation. Some of them needed to wake up and pay attention to what was going on, and some were out of the room when we set up. The cats showed almost the same number of aversive responses to each type of music,” Prof Snowdon said.
“We have found that domestic cats are more interested in and responsive to music that was composed with species-appropriate features relevant to cats,” the researchers wrote in the paper.
“These results combined with others suggest that for auditory enrichment to be effective, the enrichment must contain features that are perceptible to the species that are the target of enrichment.”
“Furthermore, managers should be aware of how different acoustic features can affect the emotional state of listeners and choose music carefully to match the goals of enrichment. It is not sufficient to simply turn on a radio or play some classical music in a laboratory or shelter and assume that acoustic enrichment needs are being met.”
“Auditory enrichment must be appropriate for the species and for the goals of enrichment.”
This work follows a 2009 study by Prof Snowdon and David Teie, which showed that a monkey called the cotton-top tamarin responded emotionally to music composed specifically for them.
That study led the scientists to believe that the same features that are effective in inducing and communicating emotional states in human music might also apply to other species. These features include pitch, tempo and timbre.
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Charles T. Snowdon et al. Cats Prefer Species-Appropriate Music. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, published online February 19, 2015; doi: 10.1016/j.applanim.2015.02.012
