This has been puzzling me for some time now: all the cats I’ve ever owned have had the usual sharp, feline senses. Any slight signal will be picked up on straight away. A twig snapping outside, an ant scurrying by on the edge of the cat’s field of vision, the fridge door being opened downstairs - all these things will have the cat letting you know, “Leave this to me. I’m onto it!” Yet, I can take a cat from total darkness to bright light (or vice versa) with the flick of a switch and there is absolutely no reaction. Ol’ puss just isn’t interested at all in what to my human mind is a fairly major and sudden environmental change.
WAG this, but I would think it’s to do with the fact that the cat’s eye can cope with a whole range of light intensity (from very dark to very light). The eye adjusts so rapidly that it probably doesn’t seem much different for cats when a light is suddenly turned on.
I have also been puzzling over a similar thing to do with artificial sound: my cat doesn’t react to the TV or radio, but is very sensitive to other sounds in the house. I’m guessing that’s a frequency thing too?
Cats are territorial predators. Twigs snapping could be a sign of prey(which should be found and eaten), or a sign that another is trespassing in your territory(in which case you should go hiss at the individual until they respect your authoritay).
Dogs are also territorial predators. Another dog in your territory must be made to submit. Prey in territory should be hunted down. Any sound that could indicate either of these should be acted on.
Sudden changes from light to darkness are no big deal. If the light suddenly comes on prey hide, not predators. If the light sudennly goes off, predators wait for prey to emerge.
Deer will freeze in headlights. They are prey.
Re-TV
I’ve only owned dogs but…
My guess is that most cats and dogs eventually learn to ignore tv and radio the same way they ignore plenty of other household sounds. The noise from a printer or washing machine is unimportant and ignored. The sound of an electric can opener or the refrigerator being opened gets a very fast response.
My last dog (Goliath, a purebred miniature dachshund) learned to ignore almost all the sounds from the television. Anytime somebody on tv rang a doorbell or knocked on a door, Goliath would run to the front door and commence barking.
If our cat is in the window of a room late at night and I switch oin the light, I always see them flinch slightly. I assume that it hurts their eyes a bit, as it hurts mine. Their pupils contract rapidly to slits, though, and they’re fine after that.
Actually… sometimes predators do freeze in the headlinghts (personal observation of wild lions and hyenas in the bush in Kenya)… also, I personally scared away a wild leopard with a flashlight (unintentionally - knew it was a wild animal, but not that it was a leopard, and was trying to get a better look; in retrospect it’s probably a good thing the leopard ran, since I was outside, unarmed, at night and not more than 50 or 60 feet away), so predators don’t necessarily react with aplomb to sudden increases in light. On the other hand, in a venue where they’re used to it (such as at lodges where the lights are known to come on at dusk) they seem unfazed. Maybe it depends not just on habituation to the light, but what the incentive is to ignore it (like, sooo much more into what they’re doing that who cares about that stupid light.)
Not sure if household cats aren’t fazed by the on/off of lights because it doesn’t reveal anything suprising (they see well enough in the dark that the light is probably not much more revealing), or if it’s that they’ve come to expect/accept this apparantly random behavior on our parts, and it isn’t stimulating their stronger instincts (chase/hunting/feeding behavior, breeding behavior, territorialism, yadda yadda).
Some animals will respond to TV and other recorded noises as well… but it depends on the noise. It probably is partly frequency and “filtering” - since our hearing is so much less acute than that of cats and dogs, maybe what sounds like perfect fidelity to us isn’t that good a reproduction to them and either contains or lacks cues that would alert the pet to the reality of the noise (is it live or is it Memorex? Maybe your dog knows for sure). My little terrier cross used to respond auditorially (but not visually) to prairie dogs on TV… she’d look at the TV, “triangulate” on the sound, and then run to look behind it for the p-dogs. But this may be because A) she loved p-dogs (to chase), or B) the noise they make is high-pitched and sharp, and maybe it translates better on audio. Both my border collies respond to barking dogs on tv, but at a much lower level than when it’s “live”. Also, we sometimes use recordings of thunderstorms or other noises to desensitise dogs with phobias to those sounds… the dog will be just as reactive if you play the sounds (at sufficient volume) as if they were happening in real life. But my dogs never (so far, anyway) react to known human voices on the phone or on the message machine, so maybe that sort of thing traslates as a “fake” and doesn’t get the reaction. Not sure. Food for thought, I guess.
I’ve occasionally seen one of my cats watching TV. From their head movements, they seemed to be responding to changes in the light on the screen rather the images themselves.
With regards to cats responding to sounds, I offer this story: when I bought my first CD player, one of the CDs I picked up was “Jingle Cats” - Christmas carols “sung” by cats. After setting up the CD player, I decided to play that one first. Withing five seconds every cat in the house came running into the room. Most of them sat there staring at the speakers, some meowed back and one of them tried to get behind one of the speakers. After a while they apparently decided that their territory was not being invaded by invisible cats, and from then on they ignored the rest of the CD.
I hereby that I was at least partially in error. I hope you continue posting your experiences.
BTW- Any Dopers own pets that are prey animals? I’m curious as to the reaction of domesticated mice and bunnies to the sudden change from darkness to light.
Possibly cats won’t respond to a global change in environment because it seems like other natural changes – such as stepping out from a shady bush, or lifting their head after being curled up in a ball, asleep.
They are certainly aware that a lighted room tends to mean human activity, while a dark one is a good place for an uninterrupted sleep.
Unless there’s a locus for the sound/movement – what could they do? If the sound was loud enough they could run in a random direction hoping that was how to get away…
DocCathode, thanks for saying “I hope you continue posting your experiences” instead of “man, what a know-it-all”!-and you present some excellent points. I have one client who accidentally acquired some snowshoe hares (long story and not her fault)… I’ll ask her what they do when the lights come on. Even though reared in captivity, they were born wild and should be instinctually intact.
I’ve been testing my cats on their light reactions for the last day and they just look up and glare at me when I turn the lights on - seems to offend them somehow.
I have noticed that since we got the dog a few months ago both our cats have been far more jumpy and alert. So their light reaction maybe something to do with that.
Once, years ago, my cat had a litter of kittens. While they were still quite young, my mom watched an episode of The Waltons that included a cat having kittens, which meant that the show included a basket of cute little mewling kittens. Well, this confused my cat to no end. She responded to the kittens’ calls, looked at the TV, and searched all around the TV for the kittens she was hearing. Poor confused thing…
I checked in with the client with the snowshoe hares. The don’t seem fazed by the lights going on, and in fact will play with a laser pointer light and can be lured out of dark hiding places by following a flashlight beam. Maybe they’re just too habituated to the light to be intimidated. Maybe it’s contextual… they’re pretty comfy and confident in the house. Maybe hares are tougher than your average lagomorph… the client reports that the hares will charge her if she’s trying to corral them and they don’t want to be corralled (shades of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I guess…)
Wouldn’t they simply be used to it by now? Chances are they’ve lived their whole indoor lives with light going on and off when the big hairless ones come into/exit the room. Human children grow up learning this as second nature, why not cats.
I also got to wondering that turning the light on should possibly send a signal to the cat “hey, the food guy” is here, but I hadn’t noticed because the cat has probably already heard me and is at the door waiting for dinner anyway. I was guessing on a Pavlovian response that my habit of turning the light on in the courtyard (where the cat eats) would be a food signal. So last night, at an hour the cat would have been hungry, I crept downstairs noiselessly, watched the cat through the venetians, and turned on the light.
Nuffin’.
So now, it’s got me wondering if, in the event that more than one regular signal triggers a Palovian response (say, sound of key in lock, light going on), only the first gets imprinted.
It’s also got me wondering if I need a life.
I also noticed that the cat does give the slight twitch some people have mentioned, but only when she’s inside the house. The courtyard light is operated from an internal switch, so maybe she’s responding to the “click” itself, which she can’t hear outside.
Thanks for the replies everyone, especially to you AK for going to the trouble inquiring about the hares.
TheLoadedDog, experiments in animal behaviour aren’t a “having a life”? I only wish I had a cat, now, so I could contribute.
leechbabe, I have this image of you flicking on and off the lights 20 times a minute while laughing fiendishly. Could it be that your cats knew you were messing with their minds? I read a great book called “Why Elephants Weep”. There are many interesting stories, but the observation that hit me out of the blue was that though mammals can’t reason like humans, they have most of the same emotions! Wow.
Regarding the OP, I was jus’ thinking that since cats and dogs have limited ability to respond to colors, the red, blue or orange tint that human immediately perceive as being “artificial” – they can’t notice at all. It all looks like light to them.
Rats are definitely in the “React” category. When the light comes on, mine tends to stand on his hind legs and freeze for up to three minutes. When frozen, you can go up to him and tap on his head and he won’t move. Lights out doesn’t seem to disturb him as much although, if he’s on the wheel, he’ll stop and take a peek around.
