A moment ago was standing in the kitchen mumbling to myself, when I noticed my cat looking at me, as if I were talking to her. Suddenly I wondered, is there any documented evidence of animals “talking to themselves” – that is, making vocalizations for their own sake without apparent intent to communicate with another living being? Does it ever occur in untrained animals?
My dog will often making “snorting” noises while rolling on her back, without knowing that anyone is watching.
Bats make sounds for their own sake, without social communicative intent. Literally, just to hear themselves talk.
All animals dream, and sometimes awake from a dream vocalizing, but they think it is a meaningful vocalization in the context of their dream .
Talking to oneself out loud is actually a pretty rare phenomenon among humans, and another species observing us would experience long intervals of boredom, waiting for a human to exhibit the behavior. So maybe other animals do, too, but as infrequently as humans do. And when we hear animals vocalizing, we are not always certain that that they are doing so with intent to communicate with another. A bird singing might just be talking to itself, how do we know?
I read somewhere (sorry no cite) that cats don’t communicate with each other by meowing, so if your cat meows it’s trying to communicate to you. You would further think that they don’t hang around the house meowing when no one’s home, though I wouldn’t put it past them.
Of course, they do communicate with each other verbally in other ways (howling, hissing) so who knows?
Parrots are famous for talking to themselves even when alone. A very commonly described version is a parrot mumbling variations on a word or phrase for days until finally trying it out when “speaking” to humans…exactly as if he’s practicing it.
Our cat will sit on a window sill making chirping noises at birds on the balcony ledge outside. I assume she isn’t really trying to talk to them and she’ll do it even when alone.
A handful of great apes have been taught rudimentary sign language. Some have been observed to sign to themselves.
What? I hear people talking to themselves outloud quite frequently. I wouldn’t consider it a “rare phenomenon” at all.
I have an aging Gordon Setter named Kharma, and as she gets older, I have noticed she ‘talks to herself’ more and more. She’ll lie at the foot of the bed and make little grumbling noises; she really reminds me of an old woman mumbling to herself. Kharma has always been very vocal… not a BARKER, but a complex series of woo-woos and roos. She has also tried very hard to imitate my speech, and thru trial and error, I actually taught her to say I love you, clearly enough that people can understand her when on the phone.
Kharma has always been a little weird.
Are you sure they are not on an ear-bud phone?
I literally cannot remember the last time I saw a person talking with no obvious listener present. It must a geographical thing.
^ This.
My family flock does exactly this. Not just for human words but imitated noises, when they’re very young and first vocalizing, etc. They will sit for hours on end mumbling and chirping and talking to themselves.
The weird thing? The babies all first went through a phase where they weren’t doing this while awake, they were talking to themselves in their sleep. That’s right, their asleep little brains and bodies were practicing making meaningful noises before they ever started vocal communications awake.
It can be a little creepy when they practice laughing, though.
Don’t a lot of pet birds? My great-grandmother’s parakeets all (each owned as a solo pet, one after the other) chirped to themselves when no one else was in the room, most often before anyone came to see them in the morning.
Parakeets, by which I assume you mean buderigar, are psittacines. In other words, they’re small parrots.
My Labrador asks questions (“Merwhrtp?”) but I think it’s just when I’m in the room…
Chimps and gorillas who have been taught some sign language* will make the signs when they are by themselves.
*Not true “language” in the human sense, but names of things and actions.