A cool experiment from one of the 31 too-clever kids on BuzzFeed (original at Flickr). Tomorrow I’ll tell you about another cool science experiment that I did with my cat.
A few errors here, including equating the music cats like with what puts cats to sleep. There was no “silence” control, which would have demonstrated that cats sleep no matter what’s going on.
One of my friends had some cats that loved classical and would hide when the punk rock came on. They were replaced by the other one that hated classical and hid from it and came out for some Devo.
Cats have varied tastes
Yes but which DEVO? early would be cool, but later – as with most bands – naff! (Yes I am an inverted snob).
Ah, the scientific method in it all it’s vigour. Sweet!
In other news : “never act with children or animals” rule extends it’s domain.
If only creationists could show such rigor. It would save everyone a lot of trouble.
😀
My 12 year old fat cat, Sara Beth, could care less about music. And, an earthquake wouldn’t wake her up!
A family friend was in Turkey for the 1999-08-11 total solar eclipse, and was still there for the Izmit (spelling?) earthquake about a week later. She slept through it.
So when I heard about a (minor) earthquake (M~=2.9) last week near our home town, my first thought was “did Mary sleep through that one too?” Enquiries have been made, but no response received.
The only sound my cat responds to is the Temptations bag being opened.
Yes, they are pretty alert for food sounds.
My cousin had to stop eating canned tuna fish because every time his cat (who didn’t have the best temper to begin with) heard the can opener, he’d come running and then get really upset it wasn’t cat food.
Here is a classic.
“Plus they didn’t try Yanni.”
They didn’t want to get their eyes scratched out?
He suggested Yanni, not Kenny G.
My kittehs love Chinese opera music. Me, not so much. 🙂
You should hide the CDs so they can’t play it.
🙂
I had to submit to the aural torture for my son’s school project, many years ago. That’s how I unearthed this gem of information!
As a science fair chair, I can say that we generally frown upon experiments involving animals, unless in a solely observational role.
Having said that, our ethics committee would probably OK this experiment, after carefully studying the protocol. We don’y want to penalise a kid who designed and executed a good experiment.
I hope they cited my science fair project where I compared the behavior of mice exposed to The Nutcracker Suite, Huey Lewis and the News and some now-forgotten Christian music.
My cat showed a fondness for Henry Mancini.
lol.
Most impressive is that the results of the study were published despite a non-statistically significant conclusion!
My brother practicing the violin had a fairly profound effect on the family cat. He would sit at my bro’s feet looking up, sometimes meow and try to climb his leg (that was unusual for this cat). I suspect it was more the frequencies than the melody though.
“Plus they didn’t try Yanni.”
That suggestion didn’t get past the ethics committee.