shoot, I'd argue the same thing for dogs... Inyuk has a variety of
vocalizations that mean distinctly different things,
and he uses them to get results. He's got a "I'm frustrated, PLAY WITH
ME!!" yap that makes me insane... and the more
friendly "Gosh its good to be alive!" yodel that never fails to
get a chortle of agreement. I know when he wants water
as opposed to food, etc etc... I'm convinced he chooses his sounds. (and
why not - it's no different in the wild)



> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-bardroom2{at}tantech.com [mailto:owner-bardroom2{at}tantech.com]On
> Behalf Of Barb Jernigan
> Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 10:03 AM
> To: bardroom2{at}tantech.com
> Subject: [BR-2] Fw: Psychology dissects how of the meow
>
>
> Of course, isn't language noise that gets results?
> No one said cats are Shakespearean actors (though they ARE equally
> dramatic =g=), but they do distinctly communicate.
>
> Ah well!
>
> Interesting article, anyway....
> =g=
>
> ====
> But what life is without danger, really? [Jill Fredston, arctic
> adventure's] father, Arthur Fredston, a courtly Manhattan attorney, was
> walking near the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001.
> Her mother, Elinor Fredston, was diagnosed with peritoneal cancer almost
> six years ago.... So, compared with terrorism and cancer, what's an
> occasional polar bear? --Michael Ryan
>
> --------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "Lorax Haven"
> Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 09:56:57 -0400 (EDT)
> Subject: Psychology dissects how of the meow
>
> http://www.ajc.com/living/content/living/0503/29cattalk.html
>
> Psychology dissects how of the meow
>
> By BILL HENDRICK
> The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
>
>
> Cat lovers like Linda Davis of Atlanta have long thought their pets
> could talk. Now research shows they're right -- in a way.
>
> Davis is convinced her cat CB does talk, sometimes in meowlike words.
> She insists she's not crazy.
>
> "If I hold up an egg, I'll say, 'Say egg,' and she'll get the guttural
> 'g' sound," says Davis, 51. "I don't see how people can
think that cats
> don't communicate with us. They don't meow just to make noise." Cornell
> University researcher Michael Owren, co-author of a newly published
> study on cat vocalization, says it's not surprising cat owners think
> like Davis.
>
> Owren is one of 2,000 psychologists gathered this week at the American
> Psychological Society's annual convention that starts today and ends
> Sunday at the Hyatt Regency downtown. Researchers will consider
> hundreds of topics, ranging from what people look for in mates and
> soulmates to the best ways to flaunt attractiveness to the opposite
> sex.
>
> Owren's work into "non-linguistic vocal communication" may
be enough to
> make you say "sufferin' succotash." He studies cats for
clues about the
> roots of human speech and says that after 10,000 years of living with
> people, cats have evolved into con artists, learning what sounds get
> results and using different meows to manipulate their owners.
>
> "Cats have evolved after thousands of years of cohabitation with humans
> to be able to influence the behavior of people by producing sounds that
> draw our attention," Owren says. "It's not language. It's not like a
> cat's meow is a word. But rather they are producing sounds that have an
> auditory impact on humans."
>
> Fred Salmons, a 55-year-old business consultant from Marietta,
> considers himself perfectly rational. But he's also convinced that he
> and his wife, Carol, know what their cat, Smokey, is saying when she
> meows.
>
> "We know the difference between her meow for petting and for food," he
> says. "Petting is quiet and accompanied by purring." Smokey's plea for
> food is "louder and more urgent than any other meow she makes."
>
> Psychologist Stuart Vyse of Connecticut College, an expert on why
> people can believe in things that seem weird, said feline owners may
> well learn to understand their cats, but that they also "may be the
> human imposing an interpretation on something that has no meaning or a
> different meaning."
>
> It's the acoustic properties of cat sounds and human reactions to them
> that form the basis of how cats convey specific meanings to people,
> says Owren. Similarly, our ancestors likely used crude laughs before
> developing more sophisticated ways to convey feelings, like speech.
>
> Researchers in Owren's lab compiled a sample of 100 different
> vocalizations from 12 cats, and recordings were played for 26 people,
> who rated each sound for pleasantness and appeal on a scale of 1 to 7.
> The same 100 cat calls were played for 28 others who were asked to
> indicate how urgent and demanding the sounds were. Owren and his lead
> researcher, Nicholas Nicastro, say listeners responded fastest to the
> most pleasant meows, just as primeval humans must have.
>
> The meows rated as more urgent or less pleasant were longer, "with more
> energy in the lower frequencies, along the lines of 'mee-O-O-O-O-W,' "
> Nicastro says. More pleasant, less demanding ones "tended to be
> shorter, with the energy spread evenly through the high and low
> frequencies. These sounds started high and went low, like 'MEE-ow.' "
>
> Listeners were correct 27 percent of the time in figuring out what the
> cat calls meant, far better than the 20 percent that would have been
> expected by mere chance, an impressive indication that felines are
> pretty good communicators.
>
> Owren's research didn't look at how cats communicate with other cats,
> which is somewhat of a mystery, since they seldom meow to each other.
> It's likely, he says, they learned to meow only to get what they wanted
> from humans.
>
> His study is published in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed Journal
> of Comparative Psychology.
>                  ---------------
> "Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going
> to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they
> ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and
> read every book."  - Dwight David Eisenhower

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