this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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Yeah that seems really far fetched. Humans are generally bad at communicating with mostly body posture and scent. We have no tail to wiggle, no easily movable ears and no chance to use cat pheromones.
So naturally the cat has the best chance to get a response by using vocalication/sounds. It is just coincidence that their kittens do also mostly respond to sounds in their first weeks.
The resemblance to baby vocalizations can be rather unsettling with some cats. I suppose it's somewhat natural since they're about the same size as a newborn human, but specifically adopting somewhat human-like (and thus baby-like, because that's the one they can imitate the best) vocalization doesn't seem that far-fetched.
I mean, I'm not sure cats are out there observing human babies and intentionally imitating them. They have pattern recognition machines in their heads just like we do. "Make noise = human pay attention" is about as complex as this gets. The fact that we're susceptible to the specific timbre of their voices seems likely to be evolutionary coincidence.
Yes and, you missed the last crucial step
“Make noise = human pay attention” "Human feeds and protects me = more kittens that probably know to pay attention" ... "Profit"
It's likely not a coincidence but something they learnt a looong time ago living among humans.
Here's a study that goes into the frequency thing:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(09)01168-3
Right, but adult cats keep making those vocalizations well past that age.
It's not that far fetched that their neoteny is an adaptation to humans.
Adult cats will meow at kittens.
My dog yawning would make me yawn.
Evolution is stupid.