Cats Prefer Species-Appropriate Music
Abstract
Many studies have attempted to use music to influence the behavior of nonhuman animals; however, these studies have often led to conflicting outcomes. We have developed a theoretical framework that hypothesizes that in order for music to be effective with other species, it must be in the frequency range and with similar tempos to those used in natural communication by each species. We have used this framework to compose music that is species-appropriate for a few animal species. In this paper we created species-appropriate music for domestic cats and tested this music in comparison with music with similar affective content composed for humans. We presented two examples of cat music in counter-balanced order with two examples of human music and evaluated the behavior and response latencies of cats to each piece. Cats showed a significant preference for and interest in species-appropriate music compared with human music (Median (IQR) 1.5 (0.5-2.0) acts for cat music, 0.25 (0.0-0.5) acts for human music, P <0.002) and responded with significantly shorter latencies (Median (IQR) 110.0 (54-138.75) s for cat music, 171.75 (151-180) s for human music (P< 0.001). Younger and older cats were more responsive to cat music than middle-aged acts (cubic trend, r2 = 0.477, P < 0.001). The results suggest novel and more appropriate ways for using music as auditory enrichment for nonhuman animals.
... This idea that musical appreciation must be relevant to the species in question has been applied in developing appropriate "music" for other species. While cats do not appear to respond to music written for humans, they do respond to music designed for cats [98]. Starting from the perspective that human music may evoke emotions in humans via the principle of emotional contagion, and drawing on research showing that the affective qualities in human music parallel those of human voices [99], music was developed for cats that contains sounds similar to purring and other cat vocalizations, while avoiding sounds similar to cat cries associated with apparent negative emotions. ...
... Starting from the perspective that human music may evoke emotions in humans via the principle of emotional contagion, and drawing on research showing that the affective qualities in human music parallel those of human voices [99], music was developed for cats that contains sounds similar to purring and other cat vocalizations, while avoiding sounds similar to cat cries associated with apparent negative emotions. They found that cats (especially those under about five years of age) showed more behaviors such as orienting to the speaker, rubbing against the speaker, etc. for the music designed (by humans) for cats, whereas they demonstrated little interest in or awareness of the human music [98]. ...
The sound environment and music intersect in several ways and the same holds true for the soundscape and our internal response to listening to music. Music may be part of a sound environment or take on some aspects of environmental sound, and therefore some of the soundscape response may be experienced alongside the response to the music. At a deeper level, coping with music, spoken language, and the sound environment may all have influenced our evolution, and the cognitive-emotional structures and responses evoked by all three sources of acoustic information may be, to some extent, the same. This paper distinguishes and defines the extent of our understanding about the interplay of external sound and our internal response to it in both musical and real-world environments. It takes a naturalistic approach to music/sound and music-listening/soundscapes to describe in objective terms some mechanisms of sense-making and interactions with the sounds. It starts from a definition of sound as vibrational and transferable energy that impinges on our body and our senses, with a dynamic tension between lower-level coping mechanisms and higher-level affective and cognitive functioning. In this way, we establish both commonalities and differences between musical responses and soundscapes. Future research will allow this understanding to grow and be refined further.
... Interestingly, the same 'Vivaldi Four Seasons' music induced relaxation and positive states in pregnant sows but more agitation in piglets [86,[94][95][96][97], which raises in particular the question of how animals perceive human-created music. Snowdon et al. [98] have suggested that music for animals should be closer to species-specific types of sounds and showed that cats were more attracted to "cat-music" (i.e., music composed of sounds inspired by cats' speciesspecific sounds). However, humans also liked the "cat-music". ...
(1) Background: Since antiquity, it is considered that sounds influence human emotional states and health. Acoustic enrichment has also been proposed for domestic animals. However, in both humans and animals, effects vary according to the type of sound. Human studies suggest that frequencies, more than melodies, play a key role. Low and high frequencies, music tuning frequency and even EEG slow waves used for ‘neurofeedback’ produce effects. (2) Methods: We tested the possible impact of such pure frequencies on racehorses’ behavior and physiology. A commercial non-audible acoustic stimulus, composed of an array of the above-mentioned frequencies, was broadcasted twice daily and for three weeks to 12 thoroughbred horses in their home stall. (3) Results: The results show a decrease in stereotypic behaviors and other indicators such as yawning or vacuum chewing, an increase in the time spent in recumbent resting and foraging, and better hematological measures during and after the playback phase for 4 of the 10 physiological parameters measured. (4) Conclusions: These results open new lines of research on possible ways of alleviating the stress related to housing and training conditions in racehorses and of improving physical recovery.
... The calming effects of music (auditory enrichment) have been investigated in several species, including cats, dogs, and horses (Houpt et al. 2000;Wells 2009;Bowman et al. 2015;Snowdon et al. 2015;Stachurska et al. 2015;Stachurska et al. 2017;Wiśniewska et al. 2019). ...
Objective, non-invasive indicators of the subjective experience of positive emotion are required to support assessment and improvement of animal welfare. Emotion is unique to the individual and indicators of emotion are indirect. The aim of this thesis was to ascertain if body and facial behaviours and physiological parameters reflected the emotional experiences of horses. Following review of the theoretical and experimental literature, three experiments were conducted, and an alternative emotional arousal-valence framework was proposed. Based on the preferences of individual horses, the relative arousal level and emotional valence induced by four stimuli (wither grooming, motionless person, intermittent spray, and being left alone) were ordered. Behavioural and physiological parameters were then measured during exposure to each stimuli. The indicators of contrasting affective experiences in horses were found to be heart rate, heart rate variability, eye temperature, and behaviours involving legs, neck, tail, ears, eyes, eyebrows, mouth, chin, and nares. Several behaviours differed across all three arousal levels or valence levels. Positive emotional valence was indicated by a decreased rate of neck very low, left ear forward, left or right ear back, blink, angled eyebrow, nares flared, nares neutral, and/or an increased rate of chin wobble, small eye aperture, or oral investigation behaviours. Higher arousal was indicated by an increased rate of neck very high, tail swishing, or higher odds of contracted lips, and/or a decreased rate of right ear forward or to the side behaviours. Reduction from 16 to six parameters may be possible. The findings may be used to aid interpretation of horse emotional experience and in the assessment and improvement of horse welfare. The research approach and framework described in this research may be suitable for future research in horses and other species.
... Conversely, a predictable piece (less information) can be easily embedded and fragmented in the mind and, therefore, requires less processing time and less effort from the listener, which can lead to greater interest 49,50 . Therefore, the number of instruments is associated with the amount of musical information and can explain the low arousal positive emotional responses to pieces with many instruments (4)(5)(6)(7)(8), as more information can reduce interest and attention. When compositions were based on more simple patterns for humans, and probably for pigs, there were high arousal positive emotional responses. ...
Music is a complex stimulus, with various spectro-temporal acoustic elements determining one of the most important attributes of music, the ability to elicit emotions. Effects of various musical acoustic elements on emotions in non-human animals have not been studied with an integrated approach. However, this knowledge is important to design music to provide environmental enrichment for non-human species. Thirty-nine instrumental musical pieces were composed and used to determine effects of various acoustic parameters on emotional responses in farm pigs. Video recordings (n = 50) of pigs in the nursery phase (7–9 week old) were gathered and emotional responses induced by stimuli were evaluated with Qualitative Behavioral Assessment (QBA). Non-parametric statistical models (Generalized Additive Models, Decision Trees, Random Forests, and XGBoost) were applied and compared to evaluate relationships between acoustic parameters and pigs’ observed emotional responses. We concluded that musical structure affected emotional responses of pigs. The valence of modulated emotions depended on integrated and simultaneous interactions of various spectral and temporal structural components of music that can be readily modified. This new knowledge supports design of musical stimuli to be used as environmental enrichment for non-human animals.
... Separate from this question, though, there is also an emerging literature on the use of classical and other types of music to help /soothe dogs (as measured by activity level/time spent sleeping, vocalizing, and/or body shaking, no matter whether they are in the home environment, kennelled, or in an animal shelter (Bowman et al., 2015(Bowman et al., , 2017Gabbard, 2017;Kogan et al., 2012;Leeds and Wagner, 2008); though see also MailOnline Reporter, 2017). As yet, however, I am unaware of anyone having looked at the question of whether classical (or, for that matter, any other kind of) music influences the feeding behaviour of dogs under different environmental conditions/contexts (and see Snowdon et al., 2015, on species-appropriate choice of music in cats). It is, however, worth bearing in mind that the dogs habituated to the music after a few days, suggesting that any beneficial effects might be short-lived. ...
While the growing global obesity crisis in humans has attracted a great deal of attention from the media and healthcare professionals alike, the rapid increase in weight problems reported amongst pets is now attracting widespread recognition too. In humans, the emerging science of gastrophysics offers a number of concrete suggestions as to how people can be nudged into eating less by means of the enhanced multisensory design of both foods and the environments in which they choose to eat. In this narrative review, the potential relevance of gastrophysics to helping tackle the growing problem of overweight and obese domestic dogs is reviewed. This involves discussion of both the important similarities and difference in the way in which people and their pets perceive food, and the likely role of various product-extrinsic factors on consumption in the two cases. Nevertheless, despite the differences, a number of suggestions for future research are forwarded that may help to address the growing problem of overweight pets, and the behaviours that give rise to it.
Some cockatiels are capable of imitating human music through song, and this ability is potentially a very interesting topic for researchers studying acoustic communication in animals. However, the vocalizations of this species, particularly their vocal sequences, have been mentioned very little in academic literature. This chapter reviews my own studies (including unpublished data) investigating the vocal behaviour of cockatiels, focusing on their capability for the imitation of human music and creative vocal production. Three hand-raised cockatiels in my laboratory were exposed to a melody of human music, which was performed through whistling. The birds produced vocal outputs in response to the melody before they had even fully fledged. Then, the birds spontaneously began to imitate the melody. The process by which the imitation developed varied among the birds. After they copied the melody, some of the birds spontaneously sang the melody in synchrony with a playback of the melody, much like humans do when they sing Happy Birthday together. Further, the cockatiels modified the patterns of the melody spontaneously. They also created some novel sound sequences without the presence of the model sounds. These findings provide insights into acoustic communication between conspecifics and heterospecifics. Given that we live in a world in which diverse creatures are living together, understanding others is of great importance.Keywords
Parrots
Rhythm
Synchronization
Creativity
Drumming
Percussion
Practical relevance
The ‘2022 ISFM/AAFP Cat Friendly Veterinary Environment Guidelines’ (hereafter the ‘Cat Friendly Veterinary Environment Guidelines’) describe how the veterinary clinic environment can be manipulated to minimise feline patient distress. Many components of a veterinary clinic visit or stay may result in negative experiences for cats. However, much can be done to improve a cat’s experience by making the veterinary clinic more cat friendly. Exposure to other cats and other species can be reduced, and adjustments made with consideration of the feline senses and species-specific behaviour. Caregivers can prepare cats for a clinic visit with appropriate advice. Waiting rooms, examination rooms, hospital wards and other clinic areas can be designed and altered to reduce stress and hence encourage positive emotions. Changes need not be structural or expensive in order to be effective and make a difference to the cats and, in turn, to cat caregivers and the veterinary team. Moreover, by improving the all-round experience at the veterinary clinic, there are positive effects on preventive healthcare, identification of and recovery from illness, and compliance with treatment.
Clinical challenges
Good feline healthcare necessitates visiting the veterinary clinic, which, simply by being outside of a cat’s territory and familiar surroundings, may lead to negative experiences. Such experiences can trigger negative (protective) emotions and associated physiological stress, which can result in misleading clinical findings, patient distress, prolonged recovery from illness, further difficulties with handling at subsequent visits and potential veterinary personnel injury. There may be a mistaken belief that veterinary clinics must undergo significant renovation or building work to become cat friendly, and that, if species cannot be separated, then clinics cannot improve their care of cats. These Guidelines aim to dispel any such misconceptions and provide detailed practical advice.
Evidence base
These Guidelines have been created by a Task Force of experts convened by the International Society of Feline Medicine and American Association of Feline Practitioners, based on an extensive literature review and, where evidence is lacking, the authors’ experience. Endorsements: These Guidelines have been endorsed by a number of groups and organisations, as detailed on page 1161 and at icatcare.org/cat-friendly-guidelines and catvets.com/environment .
Environmental enrichment is one of the methods for improving fish growth performance. In the present trial, the effects of both light color and music on growth performance and survival of goldfish (Carassius auratus) (initial mean weight: 4.15±0.08 g) were investigated for 2 months. Two light color treatments (red light and white light) and three music treatments (M 0: without music, M30:30 minutes music and M 60:60 minutes music) were considered. At the end of the rearing stage, growth performance including weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR), daily growth rate (DGR) and food conversion rate (FCR) and also survival rate (SR) were surveyed. Results indicated that the effect of music and interaction effect of light by music were not significant (P>0.05) on growth performance parameters, whereas light significantly (P<0.05) affected FCR and SGR. According to these results, goldfish showed a better growth in white light than red light (P<0.05) while music treatments did not influence growth performance differentially (P>0.05). Using music in the rearing environment had no positive or negative effect on goldfish growth, revealing that goldfish can distinguish music from other environmental stressful sounds.
Why do we believe to understand animal voices such as whining or aggressive barking of our dogs, the longing meows of our cats? Why do we frequently assess deep voices as dominant and high voices as submissive. Are there universal principles governing our own communication system? Can we even see how close animals are related to us by constructing an evolutionary tree based on similarities and dissimilarities in acoustic signaling? Research on the role of emotions in acoustic communication and its evolution was neglected for a long time. When we infect others with our laugh, soothe a crying baby with a lullaby or get goose bumps listening to classical music, we are barely aware of the complex processes upon which this behavior is based. It is not facial expressions or body language that is affecting us, but sound. They are present in music and speech as “emotional prosody” and allow us to communicate not only verbally but also emotionally. In this book we will demonstrate new and surprising insights how acoustically conveyed emotions are generated and processed in animal and man. We will demonstrate why acoustic communication of emotions are of paramount importance and essential for communication across all mammal species and human cultures.
In the tritone paradox, two tones are presented that are related by a halfoctave. Each tone consists of a set of octave-related sinusoids whose amplitudes are scaled by a bell-shaped spectral envelope; thus the usual cues to height attribution are missing. When listeners judge whether such tone pairs form ascending or descending patterns, judgments are related in an orderly fashion to the positions of the tones along the pitch class circle: Tones in one region of the circle are heard as higher and those in the opposite region as lower. However, listeners differ strikingly in the orientation of the pitch-class circle with respect to height. So far, the basis of the tritone paradox and the reasons for the individual differences in its manifestation have proved elusive. In the present study, a correlation is found between perception of the tritone paradox and the range of fundamental frequencies of the listener's speaking voice. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a close connection between the perception of a musical pattern on the one hand and the listener's speech characteristics on the other.
Voice-induced cross-taxa emotional recognition is the ability to understand the emotional state of another species based on its voice. In the past, induced affective states, experience-dependent higher cognitive processes or cross-taxa universal acoustic coding and processing mechanisms have been discussed to underlie this ability in humans. The present study sets out to distinguish the influence of familiarity and phylogeny on voice-induced cross-taxa emotional perception in humans. For the first time, two perspectives are taken into account: the self- (i.e. emotional valence induced in the listener) versus the others-perspective (i.e. correct recognition of the emotional valence of the recording context). Twenty-eight male participants listened to 192 vocalizations of four different species (human infant, dog, chimpanzee and tree shrew). Stimuli were recorded either in an agonistic (negative emotional valence) or affiliative (positive emotional valence) context. Participants rated the emotional valence of the stimuli adopting self- and others-perspective by using a 5-point version of the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM). Familiarity was assessed based on subjective rating, objective labelling of the respective stimuli and interaction time with the respective species. Participants reliably recognized the emotional valence of human voices, whereas the results for animal voices were mixed. The correct classification of animal voices depended on the listener's familiarity with the species and the call type/recording context, whereas there was less influence of induced emotional states and phylogeny. Our results provide first evidence that explicit voice-induced cross-taxa emotional recognition in humans is shaped more by experience-dependent cognitive mechanisms than by induced affective states or cross-taxa universal acoustic coding and processing mechanisms.
Many previous accounts of communication between domestic cats have been largely based on a traditional ethological approach. The signals and the context in which they occur have been described and related to the kind of environment signaller and receiver can expect to find themselves in, and to the sensory capabilities of the receiver. For example, this approach explains the use of scent signals by domestic cats as products of both their acute sense of smell, which probably evolved primarily in relation to detection of food, and also their origin as territorial animals which needed to communicate with neighbours that they might rarely encounter face to face. However, the domestic cat is the product of two distinctly different phases of evolution, the first as a wild, largely solitary, predator, and the second as a commensal and then semi-domesticated social species, living in an increasingly dependent relationship with humans. There are few studies of the communicative repertoire of the ancestral species, Felis silvestris libyca, and it is now clear from the distribution of libyca DNA that many wild cats, including those from Africa and the Middle East, are, in varying proportions, hybrids between wild F. silvestris subspecies and domesticated F. s. catus (Driscoll et al., 2007). Commensalism will have brought with it new selection pressures on communication, largely intraspecific and resulting from the higher density at which these cats live, by comparison with that of their solitary ancestors.
Attachment, a normal behavior among social animals, is quite significant since owners worry about their pets and take care of them because of this affective connection. There are not enough research studies that focus on attachment between owners and their cats. The general objective of this study was to identify attachment behaviors, directed toward their owners, in cats of different body types, age groups, and sexes in an experimental situation.Twenty-eight cats, ranging from 1 to 7 years of age and having different body types, were used in the study without taking into account sex or reproductive status. These cats underwent an Ainsworth’s Adapted Strange Situation Test. Event frequencies and behavioral state durations in individual type behaviors such as exploration/locomotion, alertness, and inactivity were registered using direct focal sampling. For data analysis, cats were divided by body type, sex, and reproductive status. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) of locomotion/exploration revealed a statistically significant difference (N = 28, F = 13.55, P < 0.001) between the episodes with the owner, alone, and with a stranger with cats spending more time engaged in locomotion/exploration while accompanied by their owner. On the alert behavior event frequency, difference (ANOVA, F = 7.44, P < 0.05) was found, which showed a higher frequency while in the company of a stranger. Last, in the inactivity time ratio, a significant difference was found (ANOVA, F = 18.55, P < 0.001), where the time spent on this behavior was considerably higher when the animal was alone.These results are consistent with the ones obtained by Ainsworth in children attached to their mothers; therefore, it can be said that cats can manifest attachment behaviors toward their owners. Further studies are indicated to see whether cats can develop separation anxiety.
In the wild, animals are exposed to an ever-changing array of sensory stimuli. The captive environment, by contrast, is generally much more impoverished in terms of the sensory cues it offers the animals housed within. In a bid to remedy this, and promote better welfare, researchers have started to explore the merits of sensory stimulation (i.e. stimulation designed to trigger one or more of an animal's senses) as a potential method of environmental enrichment for captive animals. This paper reviews the research in this area, focusing specifically on auditory, olfactory and visual methods of sensory stimulation. Studies exploring the efficacy of each type of stimulation as an enrichment tool are described, where appropriate, making a distinction between those that occur in the animal's natural habitat, and those that do not. Overall, it is concluded that sensory stimulation harbours enrichment potential for some animals housed in institutional settings, although the specific merits gained from these enrichments are likely to depend upon a wide variety of factors including, for example, species, sex, age and housing conditions. Programmes of sensory enrichment that target the dominant sense for the species under scrutiny, using harmless, non-stressful stimuli, are likely to result in the greatest benefits for animal welfare. Stimuli specific to a species’ natural habitat should not always be considered meaningful, or advantageous, to an animal's welfare; in some cases stimuli that do not occur naturally in the wild (e.g. classical music) may offer more in the way of welfare advantages. Shortcomings in the research, and factors to consider when implementing enrichment of this nature, are discussed throughout.