Feline Smarts: Are Cats as Socially Intelligent as Dogs?
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New studies show that cats might be as smart and good with people as dogs. For a long time, people thought dogs were smarter because they have been studied more. But recent research shows cats are also very good at understanding and interacting with people, just like dogs in many ways.
Dogs: The First to Be Studied
For many years, dogs were the main focus of studies about animal smarts. Because dogs have lived and worked with people for so long, they learned to understand human signals, feelings, and even some words. Studies showed how living with humans changed dogs to be better at social tasks compared to wolves.
Cats: The Quiet Companions
Even though many people have cats at home, they haven't been studied as much. Cats come from animals that lived more on their own. So, people thought cats didn't pay as much attention to human signals as dogs. It was also harder to study cats in labs because they didn't like new places, which made some researchers give up.
New Proof of Cat Smarts
But new studies are showing something different. Scientists have found that cats, like dogs, can understand when people point, follow where people look, and react to human feelings. Tests show that cats understand what people mean and can read social signs. For example, cats can tell their owner's voice from a stranger's and show they care about their owners, just like dogs do.
What We Learned:
Cats are as smart as dogs in social tests: New research shows cats do as well as dogs in tests about understanding people.
Changing old ideas: These findings show that cats are not just distant or hard to train.
How living with people changed them: Both dogs and cats have learned special social skills from living with humans, but in different ways.
Studying cats is tricky: It's hard to study cats because they like to be independent and don't like new places.
Brain Size Matters?
One study looked at the number of brain cells in the thinking part of the brain for animals like cats and dogs. This study found dogs have more brain cells than cats. Some people think this means dogs are smarter. But other scientists say it's not that simple, and that being smart means different things for different animals.
What's Next
Even though studying cats is still hard, more and more research shows that cats are much smarter with people than we thought. As scientists find better ways to study cats, we will learn more about their smarts and how they connect with humans. This will finally give cats the attention they deserve in science.
Sources
Cats rival dogs on many tests of social smarts. But is anyone brave enough to study them? | Science, Science | AAAS.
Are Dogs Smarter Than Cats? Science Has an Answer, National Geographic.
Sorry, Grumpy Cat—Study finds dogs are brainier than cats, Vanderbilt University.