They used rhythms that mimicked noise of purring cats or suckling kittens. Tests showed the cats preferred the new tunes to classical music like Bach. The researchers say species specific music can be used to calm animals
They say pet owners could use cat music to help keep their animals happy.
Most people will have heard music that sounds a bit like cats fighting - but it turns out that is not far from the kind music our feline pets actually enjoy. Lots of people think their pets like the same music they like and some laboratories require the playing of music as "enrichment".
Scientists have created what they say is the first species-specific music for domestic cats by replicating some of the sounds the animals produce themselves.
They say the music could provide new ways for cat owners to enrich the environments that their pets live in while also helping to calm agitated animals.
The process of designing cat music began with studies to figure out what sounds “elicit feline feelings.” As opposed to feline “Feelings.”
We get our first taste of rhythm in our mothers’ wombs, but cats encounter them only after they’re born. I checked this out, and it’s true: Newborn kittens arrive deaf and blind. So a cat’s first comfort sound, for example, is likely its mother’s purr, a very different rhythm than our moms’ slow and steady heartbeats. Cat music is based on this and other sounds that make a cat’s ears pivot.
Just like in humans, however, the younger the cat was, the more excited it got about the music - with middle aged cats seeming the least interested.
"We studied the cat meow - explained Charles Snowdon, one of the authors of the study - and tried to adapt our music to the same frequencies as their sounds, which are higher than the human voice".