If you happen to have a cat in your life, you already realize that they can squeeze themselves into some tiny places. In fact, it seems that they prefer to find a perch when it is almost too small for their body.
Since we know that cats like to sit in boxes, the question is whether they would still sit inside a picture of a box if the picture was painted on the floor. The researchers took this question and ran with it.
One researcher started a citizen science project and tried to fool the cats using the “Kanizsa contour illusion.”
If you’re not familiar with that term, it’s an illusion related to the way our eyes and brain perceive information we perceive visually. It’s an optical illusion in many ways.
To conduct the study, 6 different Kanizsa images were randomly assigned to 30 cat owners. They placed them on the floor for 30 days and observed how the domestic cats interacted with them. Owners of cats are also required to wear sunglasses so that they do not affect the cat’s behavior in the way that they see them.
There are 4 Pac-Man figures forming the corners of the square. The seven cats in the study will sit inside a square with Pac-Man pointing in on a consistent basis, and eight cats will sit in a square where Pac-Man faces out. There are only two other cats sitting inside the oddly shaped square.
Based on Science Direct, animal behaviorist Gabriella Smith, said: “To the best of our knowledge, this investigation is the first of its kind in three respects: a public scientific study people about cat perception; an official test of cats’ attraction to 2D rather than 3D boxes; and study the susceptibility of cats to mirage contours in an ecologically appropriate model. “
Happy to announce that my paper, “If I Fits I Sits: A citizen science investigation of hallucinogenic borderline sensitization in domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus) has just been published in AABS! #IfFIitsISits #CatSquare #CitizenScience #CommunityScience pic.twitter.com/AXbDttnOGC
– Gabriella E. Smith MA (@Explanimals) May 4, 2021
It seems that cats’ eyes are designed to detect an enclosed space. That’s true, even if it only exists in 2D environments. In other words, cats love boxes, whether it’s a cardboard box or a box painted on the floor.
