Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
Are cats capable of enjoying and appreciating music? Dr. Charles Snowdon, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, thinks so, and he is on a mission to develop the purr-fect song or our feline friends.
To do so, the Huffington Post explains, Dr. Snowdon attempted to mimic the natural sounds of cats by using sliding notes and high pitches. Cat calls tend to be at least an octave above human voices, he said, and the tempo was based on the sound of purring and suckling.
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He and his colleagues then tested their compositions on 47 domestic male and female felines in their own homes, and as the cats listened to the specially-designed music, they were significantly more likely to orient their heads towards it, approach it, and even rub up against a speaker.
When they played two pieces of music described as being pleasing to humans (Gabriel Fauré’s Elegie and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Air on a G String), however, the cats basically ignored the sound and showed no interest in the music whatsoever, according to Discovery News.
Kitty ditties
As the website explains, cats have scent glands on their tails, between their front paws, on each side of their head and in other places. When a cat rubs against a person or thing, it means that it is claiming that individual or object. During the experiments, it appeared as though the cats were attempting to claim the special cat music, represented by the speakers playing it. They made no such gesture when the Bach and Fauré pieces were being played.
Dr. Snowden and his fellow researchers, who report their findings in a recent edition of the journal Applied Animal Behavioral Science, used primarily mixed-breed cats for their study, so they cannot tell if certain types of cats prefer music more than others. However, they did find that middle-aged cats had less of a response to feline-specific music than younger or older ones.
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Dr. Snowden told the Huffington Post that there were two main reasons for the research.
Leaving Spotify on for your cat may be futile
“First, many pet owners told us that they play radio music for their pets while they are at work and we wondered if this had any value,” he said. “Second, we have developed a theory that suggests that species other than humans can enjoy music but that the music has to be in the frequency range that the species uses to communicate and with tempos that they would normally use.”
He also told Discovery News that the researchers believe that the “music for cats” project “could benefit shelter cats,” and particularly those that are accustomed to human companionship. “We think of cats as highly independent of their human servants, but there is some research showing that cats experience separation anxiety, which is greater in human-raised cats than in feral cats,” he added.
[STORY: Do animals appreciate music?]
The researchers have also launched a website where you (and your cat) can hear some of the tunes for yourselves. They have broken down the music into three categories: kitty ditties, which are described as playful and quick… a little like sonic catnip, cat ballads, which should be restful and pleasing for your kitty, and feline airs, which are based on the pulses of purring and are meant to draws sympathetic emotions from the listener.
We played the samples for our official redOrbit cat and he has given them a round of appaws.
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