What does the cat want to say with its persistent meow? Why is she purring like that? Are the sounds made by cats from different countries different? To find out all this, Swedish scientists launched a special linguistic project. And he has already given the first results that will be of interest to all cat owners. For example, cats have been found to have sounds that are only for humans.
What does the cat want to say with its persistent meow? Why is she purring like that? Are the sounds made by cats from different countries different? To find out all this, scientists launched a special linguistic project.
The idea to study the sounds that cats make was born during a talk on the difference between the purr of a large cheetah and a small domestic cat.
“Can we really use the methods that are used to study human speech to study the sounds made by animals? How interesting! - I thought.
Susanne Schötz, an expert and teacher of phonetics, was in the audience, and the talk was delivered by Robert Eklund, professor at the Department of Languages and Culture at Linkoping University. And so they launched a project together to study cat sounds.
In a five-year project, scientists used phonetic techniques developed for humans to study how cats communicate with humans through their various sounds.
According to Susanne Schötz, kittens meow when they want to attract the attention of their mother, but most often with age they stop doing this, unless they get to a person - then they continue to use meows when they want to get the attention of their owner or companion.
“I think that every cat and family in which she lives, over time, has something in common, almost a unique language with many nuances, and both parties learn to understand it. I think cats can learn new nuances of the language,”says Susanne Schötz.
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She claims that cats try different approaches. If one type of meow does not work, they create another. When the cat finds some kind of special meow that is triggered if she asks, for example, food or clean the tray, she continues to use it.
To learn more about how communication occurs between a cat and a person, scientists have so far recorded the sounds made by about 70 cats. Now they sort the recordings and divide them into different categories: meows, purrs, purrs, coos, growls and howls.
Scientists then use scientific phonetic methods to better understand these sounds. In the video, they watch the cats articulate, how they open and close their mouths when they make sounds. Scientists use computer programs that analyze human speech to distinguish the acoustic signatures of these sounds. The program has been modified so that it can also be used to analyze cat sounds.
“We focus on melody and intonation. Here we found a lot of variations that, in our opinion, can be associated with the mood of the cat and, probably, with the situations in which the cat uses these sounds to communicate with people.
"We have done a lot of preliminary studies that, for example, have shown that the meow of a cat is different in stressful and frightening situations, when he travels in a carrier to the veterinarian, from the sounds he makes at home in the kitchen while waiting for breakfast."
Even before the launch of this science project, Susanne Schötz began to engage in feline research in her spare time. She herself has five cats.
As a phonetician, she has participated in many research projects on Swedish dialects: how they are articulated, how their melodies vary, how vowels are used.
“If you have cats like me, and at the same time at work you listen to the subtle nuances of human speech all day, it's easy to start listening to feline sounds the same way.”
She listened to cats making cute sounds like cooing when they sat at the window and looking at birds, as well as more aggressive sounds when they were defending themselves from something.
“When in the spring we sometimes had battles for territory with cats living in the neighborhood, I went out with a video camera and recorded their grumbling and howling,” she says.
Susanne Schötz made several popular science talks about her little cat project and saw that many were very interested in it. After some time, the scientists received funding and were able to officially begin research, which they were doing in parallel with other work.
The recording of the cat sounds was given to 30 participants - both cat owners and others - and surprisingly often people were able to determine where the cat was, in their kitchen or at the veterinarian.
“Even those who don't have their own cat have given the correct answer too often to be called a mere coincidence.”
The next step is to measure the frequencies of the main tone of the cat's "speech" and associate them with various situations and moods of the animal. So scientists will understand how the melody varies.
"If this is indeed the case, as our preliminary studies indicate, then we have taken a step forward towards a better understanding of our cats."
Dagens Nuheter: What do you hope to achieve with this study?
Susanne Schötz: When we are done, anyone can go to our project page and listen to the cat sounds. Thus, perhaps it will be a little easier for someone to understand what his cat wants to say with some of his special meows.
She also suggests that this research can be useful in the care of the elderly, where cats have been given great importance in recent years. And veterinary clinics may be better able to determine if the cat's meow means that the cat is in pain.
Now scientists are trying to solve one small problem: the sounds made by different cats can be very different from each other. Just like humans, cats have different voices. The voice of a cat depends on the age, sex and size of the animal, and they also have different characters, just like us.
“We can't ask our animals what they want to say with their different sounds, so we have to resort to different scientific methods and make educated guesses,” explains Susanne Schötz.
Scientists have noticed that the character is very influencing on the timbre of the animal's voice and partly on its melody, however, there are general trends that are true for most cats.
“Most meow and can coo and hum in a friendly way,” says Susanne and shows us these different sounds.
How often cats meow depends a lot on the specific animal, says Susanne.
“Some cats are more extroverted, outgoing and social, they want to be with a person. Others are more reserved, perhaps shy and fearful. But we also noticed that it depends a lot on how much the owners talk to their cats."
In parallel with recording the sounds made by cats, scientists asked their owners how often they communicate with their pets and how actively cats communicate with the help of sounds.
“We concluded that the more you talk to the cat, the more the cat will talk to you.”
Susanne Schötz emphasizes that, in general, scientists have studied dogs rather than cats in the context of sound communication, not to mention birds.
“We hope to gather more knowledge about cats. Since we are linguists and not biologists, our research takes a different angle. After all, we use the same methods as for learning human language. We look at articulation - how cats move their mouths when they meow, howl or hiss."
She emphasizes that scientists, of course, clearly understand that cats have no speech in the understanding that humans.
“But they have a tongue, vocal cords and lips - just like us. They have a jaw that they can raise and lower. They shape their sounds in much the same way we shape speech."
- And what are these separate cooing sounds really?
- We found that this is a very frequent sound, they make it almost more often than the purr itself - and after all, cats can purr even when they are hungry or under stress. Oftentimes, individual frowns work like greetings, but only between friends. Also, these sounds can express gratitude if the cat has received something good from the owner or companion.
- What is the difference between a separate purr from a prolonged purr?
- There is a big difference, both purely linguistically and phonetically. Purring is unique in that cats can purr both on inhalation and exhalation, and therefore purring can last for a very long time. A separate smirking is such a short "mrrrk", after which the air runs out.
In addition, the sound volume of a prolonged purr is much lower than that of an individual "murk": between 20 and 30 Hz and below, which is somewhere on the border of the human ear.
The classic purr, according to Susanne Schötz, occurs when a cat lies calmly and rests, pleased with himself and the world around him.
“A hungry cat can mix in some hums and even meows in a purr, and then it gets louder,” she says and mimics the sounds. "Then the purr has a very different intensity."
“This ability to nuance sounds and mix some sounds with others is very common, and sometimes it is connected with some difficulties for us, it is difficult for us to separate sounds into categories”, Such a wide variety of sounds also testifies to the fact that cats express their intentions, desires, needs, moods in a rather complex way, says Susanne Schötz.
Further, within the framework of the project, scientists are going to find out whether human dialects affect the sounds made by cats. To do this, they record the sounds of cats in different parts of Sweden: Stockholm, Östergötland and Skåne.
Research project
"Melody in Human-Cat Communication" is a five-year research project that scientists are engaged in concurrently at Lund University.
Participating in the project are Susanne Schötz, Associate Professor at the Department of Phonetics at Lund University, Robert Eklund, Professor at the Department of Languages and Culture at Linköping University, and Joost van de Weijer, Associate Professor at the Department of General Linguistics at the University of Lund.
The project is funded with support from the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Memorial Foundation.
Various sounds made by domestic cats
A purr is a weak continuous sound at very low frequencies. Cats not only purr when they are happy, but also when they are hungry or stressed.
A separate fumble is often a rather short, nasal, soft and faint sound. Primarily used in a friendly atmosphere.
Meowing is mostly for us humans. It is used in many different situations and is divided into different subcategories that can mix with each other (for example, meow with elements of purr, howling meow, aching meow, meow with grunt).
A howl is a sustained, sonorous warning sound, sometimes with a descending or ascending intonation, which usually repeats, gradually increasing in intensity.
A grunt is usually a very low muffled and sustained sound involving the ligaments. Usually denotes danger or is used to scare off an opponent.
Hissing and spitting are warning and intimidating sounds produced by a strained open mouth with a raised upper lip and bared teeth.
Screams and screams are short, high-pitched and loud sounds, often hoarse or hoarse, with only vowels. Used in physical contractions or as a final warning.
Cooing and clicking sounds when cats see prey. Short sounds without using the vocal cords. Cooing resembles the chirping of birds or the squeak of rodents - perhaps this is an imitation of the sounds of prey.
Hans Arbman