Cats Love to Sit On Squares, Even on Imaginary Ones [Study]

Cats love crawling into small spaces that seemed not enough for them but end up fitting in the end. Exactly what goes in their mind is something of a mystery to many people and even to scientists.

But according to new research, cats can also be fooled by optical illusions. Researchers found that cats not only love sitting inside cardboard boxes but also on 2D shapes that look like squares. This finding might give scientists an insight into what cats have in their minds and how they think.

The study entitled "If I fits I sits: A citizen science investigation into illusory contour susceptibility in domestic cats," was published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

Testing Cats Love For Boxes

Cats, whether big tigers or domesticated felines, love fitting themselves into boxes, crates, or other four-sided objects. Gabriella Smith, a recent master's graduate from New York's Hunter College and an animal cognition researcher, said that her experiment was inspired by a lecture about dogs' susceptibility to optical illusions.

From there, she wondered whether cats' love for boxes could also mean that they too can be fooled with optical illusions if they see outlined squares on the floor, according to Gizmodo.

Smith tested her theory last year with her colleagues and put together a project asking cat owners to be citizen scientists.

Within six days, 30 cat owners out of 500 fulfilled the experiment wherein they created several different shapes for the cats using paper, scissors, and tape. These shapes include a typical square and a Kanizsa square illusion in which Pacman-like shapes form an outlined square.

Another Kanizsa shape square was used as control, but this one cannot form the illusion of the outlined square. Once the shapes are on the floor, cats would enter the room and choose a shape to sit or stand for at least three seconds for the experiment to be successful.

According to IFL Science, this was recorded by the owners via a camera and smartphone. To avoid cat owners influencing their cats, they were asked to not interact with them and wear dark sunglasses to avoid making eye contact.

Cats are Capable of Illusory-Contour Perception

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The experiment showed that cats sat in Kanizsa squares and the taped squares, but not on the control shape. Vice reported that this suggests cats are capable of illusory-contour perception, in which they could see visual cues that suggest the edge of the shape that does not exist.

This is similar to humans who start to develop this sort of perception at around three to four months and strengthens as a person ages.

"Many animals are evolved to perform this sort of perception," said Smith. "It's probably to do with navigating the environment. You need to know when not to walk into a tree or off a cliff."

Smith and her team's study is the first to investigate illusory-contour perception among domestic cats, showing that felines are susceptible to optical illusions inside a home.

The authors also believe that this is the first citizen science study of cat cognition and the first study of whether cats are also attracted to 2D boxes instead of 3D.

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