How Intelligent Are Cats? (2004)
I am one of those people who had one view before a youtube video and another view after.<p>We had cats when I was a kid, and I would observe that cats are very good at tracking prey, at opening doors or at getting humans to open them, at figuring out who is the boss, and at bearing very, very long term grudges, but otherwise they operate in a system where the world revolves around them (apparently quite literally in terms of how they map the world).<p>This utility-focussed view of the world means they always get fed, but it also leads them to get stuck when exploring -- never paying attention to the fact that the neighbour&#x27;s garage door does not just open, it also closes, for example!<p>So I have tended to see them as well-optimised, intelligent, but not necessarily &quot;bright&quot;.<p>But the cat-mirror-ears video -- where a cat sees a reflection in a mirror, apparently understands that it is its own reflection and then... realises it has ears... that changed my mind.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=akE2Sgg8hI8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=akE2Sgg8hI8</a><p>There is another &quot;cat theory of mind&quot; video where a mother cat purposefully and deliberately retrieves an object its kitten wants to play with, that scientists have talked about on twitter, but I can&#x27;t find it.<p>A friend of mine has a cat that learned to play fetch as a kitten and never stopped playing. So unusual.