Have you ever wondered about the memory of cats?Have you ever called your cat by name and he hasn’t answered?Are you surprised how he manages to get home even though he knows he goes out every day to visit his feline friends?Is it memory or instinct?
Many people think that animals, including those that have been domesticated, are not able to remember what is happening to them or to learn new things, yet anyone who has a pet or lives with animals knows that this is not true.Do you know if your cat has a good memory?Keep reading this article by Animal Expert!
- As with other animals.
- Including humans.
- Feline memory resides in a part of the brain.
- Which occupies less than 1% of its body mass.
- But in terms of memory and intelligence.
- The determinant is the number of existing neurons.
So, a cat has three hundred million neurons, don’t you know what that means?For comparison, dogs have about one hundred and sixty million neurons and, biologically, cats’ ability to retain information is much greater than that of dogs.
Some studies have shown that the short-term memory of cats is about 16 hours, allowing them to remember recent events, however, for these events to go into long-term memory, they must be of vital importance to the cat, so that it can make the selection and keep this event as something that could be useful for the future , the exact mechanism by which this process is carried out is still unknown.
The memory of domestic cats, besides selective, is episodic, that is, cats are able to remember the location of things, certain people, routines, positive or negative events, among many other things that have lived.with which they live and feel certain experiences that makes them store this information in the brain or not.
As in humans, some studies have shown that cats have cognitive abilities that deteriorate as they reach old age, this condition is called feline cognitive dysfunction, which usually affects cats over 12 years of age.
Observation and feline experiences allow the feline to learn everything it needs to live comfortably.How does the cat benefit from everything he observes and experiences?By the memory you select what is useful and allows you to react better to your interests the next time you do.encounters a certain situation.
The cat’s memory works this way in domestic and wild cats, from kittens, cats look at their mothers to learn everything they need, in this learning process the sensations that the cat experiences during life, whether good or bad, in this way the cat is able to react to the stimuli related to the time of eating and recognize the sounds of these people or other animals that try to harm it.
This system allows the cat to protect himself from potential dangers, identify his guardian and remember everything that is positive to him, such as delicious food, love and games.
What the cat learns is directly related to the benefits that the cat manages to obtain through this learning, if the cat considers that something does not help him it is very likely that this information will be deleted with a short-term memory, for this reason, it is very difficult to teach a cat to stop scratching a place that he likes so much , although it is possible to teach you how to use a scraper.
There are still no studies to determine how long a cat can remember things, some surveys only cover three years, but anyone with a cat can relate their behavior to situations that the cat experienced long ago.
The truth is that there is still no absolute opinion on this.What we know is that cats are not only able to remember favorable or unfavorable situations, of knowing whether to repeat or not, but also to store in their memory the identity of people and other pets (and the sensations that accompany the experiences with them), in addition to having a spatial memory.
Thanks to this spatial memory, the cat is able to learn very easily the location of the objects of the house, especially those that interest him most, such as the bed, the sand, the pitcher and the food, and are the first to realize that something has changed in the decoration.
Are you surprised your cat jumps into bed a few minutes before you?After a few days at home, the cat quickly learns your entire routine and therefore knows what time you leave, what time you get up, when it can sleep with you, etc.
If you would like to read articles similar to, we recommend that you visit our Curiosities section of the animal world.