Cats, short-term memory, and my theories

One of my cats will be playing with a piece of yarn (or anything that a cat routinely plays with). She will really go after it for a long time. Then suddenly, she will tire of it, rest, eat, whatever. Then a few minutes later, she will walk across the room, see the piece of yarn, and it’s like, “Oh my God! What is this? I must play with it as its nature is unlike anything I have ever encountered before!”

I have a male cat who loves to chase the end of a plastic straw. He runs in little-bitty circles to chase it when a person drags it around. He will do it every single time he sees it. He is ten years old and has done it since he was tiny.

The other female, when she gets in the litter box, after she has done her thing, tries to cover up the offensive substance by scraping the sides of the box. She never successfully covers the crap, and she always looks back to survey the “job” she has done (she must realize that she has not covered the poop). She has done this since she was a baby.

All three of them love to chase the little laser dot from a laser pointer every time we bring it out of the drawer.

My question is: Are cats blissfully unequipped with short-term memory that allows them to forever be surprised by a bird or a toy? Could that be why they are always satisfied with the exact same food and a bowl of water? This has been the subject of an ongoing debate between my mother and me.

Actually, I could ask the same question about some humans I know, so perhaps it is not an issue that is species-specific…

How true :smiley:

Now if that laser pointer would also work on children and pain-in-the-butt teenagers …

:smiley:

I wish I could back it up with cites, but I heard off-handedly a while ago that this was the case.

It’s the same deal with my cats and the whole inside/outside thing.

As soon as I get home from work, they rush to the door so I can let them outside. Then they stay there for approximately 2.5 seconds and then run back after they realize that it’s FREEZING outside. Then they go eat some food… and right back to the door again crying like crazy as if they had never been outside a day in their life… this can go on for hours (And usually does).

Cats are operating on instinct most of the time. It’s like a computer subroutine kicks in. They have some long-term learning, but from moment to moment they are mostly instinctual. The instincts seem to cycle throughout the day. So, for example, they are programmed to hunt even when not hungry. This makes sense, as they drag food to their lair (outside your door) to consume later.

Instinct #1: Hunt by sitting still. It looks like snoozing, but it’s really “opportunistic hunting”. Sit vewy, veewy quiet and when something that sounds or looks like food comes along, then chase.

Instinct #2: sleep

Instinct #3: actively hunt, “play”, chase, run. This gives them exercise, and enables them to capture prey with amazing skill.

Instinct#4: Social contact. Yes, cats are social. They lick another cat’s ears before sitting beside them, for example.

Instinct #5: mating. Many male cats show this by pawing at a blanket as if nursing (another instinct), which then turns into a kind of masturbatory humping of the blanket. Female cats seem to need intact organs and to be in heat to show mating instincts.

Instinct #6: change the game. Cats do go after the same hunting stimuli (a string, a straw, whatever their hunting fetish is), but they will eventually want you to do something different with it. In the wild, cats tend to visit the same places, but will eventually explore new territory

Instinct #7: Territory. I had a friend who’s ex-stray male cat would defend the stairs up to the second floor. He decide that this was his territory. My cat will chase anything (including foxes) that venture into the yard. Outside the yard, he avoids them.

My cat knows the rules of the house. He knows when he breaks them, and acts guilty when seen committing these heinous crimes. So he has long-term memory in many cases.

It may be possible that animals have an intentionally selective memory. Considering that their brains run on a few less watts than we humans use, they may have to decide what is important to store in memory, and what is easily forgettable. Such as,

Location of food dish: important
Location of litter box: important
Which humans are the ones that feed cat/pet cat: important
Location of toy: unimportant (likely to be there when cat returns)
Rules: relatively unimportant
Cute tricks which earn treats: important
Where to hide stolen shiny things: important

Does this go for cats that are fixed too? My cat is often found knitting blankets when I’m in bed, and often starts intense cuddling, in which he’ll repeatedly rub against me and lick me and knit me and roll all around, all the while purring like a pick-up truck. He always seemed to be getting a little too much pleasure out of this, but I’m wondering if it is actually that kind of pleasure.

I don’t know about short term memory, but they certainly seem to have long term memory intact.