A new study reveals
that cats don't just enjoy human company, they choose humans first, before
food.
Oregon State
University published their research on 24 March 2017 in the journal,
Behavioural Processes, which concludes that cats enjoy human contact more than
they enjoy eating.
Dispelling the rumour
that cats are antisocial, they subjected cats to a series of tests to determine
their choices in different situations. The researchers took 50 cats from
shelters and people’s homes and deprived them of food, human contact, scent,
and toys for a few hours.
They then introduced
the cats to stimuli within these four categories to see which one they chose
first.
Most cats chose human
socialisation over any of the other categories. The authors of the study wrote:
"While it has been suggested that cat sociality exists on a continuum,
perhaps skewed toward independency, we have found that 50% of cats tested
preferred interaction with the social stimulus even though they had a direct
choice between social interaction with a human and their other most preferred
stimuli from the three other stimulus categories."
The evidence is not
categorical, of course, because it is only a 50% - half and half – result, and
the cats were from shelters, which may mean that they were already deprived of
human contact and affection before the testing. But, anyway, the study will
give cat lovers some joy.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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