Lovers of cat must be jubilation now as something they’ve known for years is now confirmed by science that felines are just as intelligent as dogs when it comes to memory tests according to a new research.
Japanese scientists believe that cats, along with canines and humans, are one of the few creatures shown to have ‘episodic’ memories.
Episodic memory is the ability to remember autobiographical and contextual details of events like where and when they happened. The study involved getting 48 cats to remember which bowl they had already eaten from and which remained unused after a 15-minute period.
The authors say that the results show the cats remembered not only ‘what’ they encountered – the bowl and food – but the useful information that there was an uneaten bowl of food as well.
They wrote: ‘Our results demonstrate that cats may possess an incidental memory system, similar to dogs and humans.’
Saho Takagi, a psychologist at Kyoto University, said cats, as well as dogs, used memories of a single past experience, which may imply they have episodic memory similar to that of humans.
‘Episodic memory is viewed as being related to introspective function of the mind; our study may imply a type of consciousness in cats,’ she told BBC News.
‘An interesting speculation is that they may enjoy actively recalling memories of their experience like humans.’ She added that the research may help to establish better relationships between pets and their cats.
‘Cats may be as intelligent as dogs, as opposed to the common view of people that dogs are much smarter,’ she added. Her team said they were going to test to see if cats could remember for longer 15 minutes.
The team say they suspect that this ability to remember is common among many carnivores – explaining the similarity between cats and dogs.
Professor Laurie Santos, of Yale University, said the experiment showed cats remembering information about where they searched before and also which locations used to have food.
He said: ‘It opens the door to new studies examining how long cats’ memories can be and whether they also remember richer episodes in their own life as humans do’.
Experiments have shown dogs also appear to have memories linked to specific times and places. The same team of Japanese scientists previously found that in similar tests, dogs had memories of food bowls from which they had eaten.
And last year, a team from Hungary found that dogs were able to recall their owner’s actions, even when they were not specifically instructed to do so.
The research is published in the journal, Behavioural Processes.
