Are cats capable of behavioral mimicry?
I love this video, and it even holds up on repeated viewings until the spell is broken and the trick revealed.
I love it because for a fleeting second, you think this owner has somehow produced (or this cat is innately capable of) behavioral mimicry. True behavioral mimicry (which this is not, sadly) requires true intelligence. If you think otherwise, ask yourself why we pay stage actors or Kate McKinnon or Frank Calliendo so much compared to plumbers (well, compared to taxi drivers). Staring up at the sky when you encounter some prankster doing the same is dismissed as stupid, but it is actually intelligent (given the choice, why not try to avoid something falling from the sky?), and even more intelligent once you've learned your leg is being pulled and remember not to fall for it the second time around (again, learned behavior is not what separates us from our four-legged friends, even bees and sea creatures are able to "learn" by watching others of their species).
We dismiss African grey parrots as not really intelligent, just capable of amazing vocal mimicry, no more worthy of praise than a highly-evolved tape recorder. We already know that cats, when they are hungry, mix cries of the same frequency as human baby cries into their purring, and become really good at imitating the chatter of birds when they are stalking that type of prey.
But cats are not dolphins (who can expertly mimic human movement in the water), and this video does nothing to disprove this, or give us a glimpse into "future cat". After you've watched the loop a couple times, either scroll down and read the comments if you haven't figured out the reason the cat decides to finally take that leap, or do what the comments say, and look closely at the lower framing of the door in the first second. This then becomes a behavior that is smart enough, but the avoidance smart resulting from centuries of evolution.
The fact that your cat seemingly never tires of chasing the stupid laser on your keychain should have tipped you off anyway.
We dismiss African grey parrots as not really intelligent, just capable of amazing vocal mimicry, no more worthy of praise than a highly-evolved tape recorder. We already know that cats, when they are hungry, mix cries of the same frequency as human baby cries into their purring, and become really good at imitating the chatter of birds when they are stalking that type of prey.
But cats are not dolphins (who can expertly mimic human movement in the water), and this video does nothing to disprove this, or give us a glimpse into "future cat". After you've watched the loop a couple times, either scroll down and read the comments if you haven't figured out the reason the cat decides to finally take that leap, or do what the comments say, and look closely at the lower framing of the door in the first second. This then becomes a behavior that is smart enough, but the avoidance smart resulting from centuries of evolution.
The fact that your cat seemingly never tires of chasing the stupid laser on your keychain should have tipped you off anyway.
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