Do Cats Have a Memory?

The cat knows how to find its way, even several miles from home, responds to its name, and remembers the commonplace of its dish, even when it is no longer there. Is this a sign that he has a memory, or is it just a matter of instinct? We will try to answer it by considering the scientific advances in this passage.

The cat is a temporary memory

Various scientific studies indicate that the Memory of Cats is about 16 hours long. Beyond that time, it would only store important information. This short-term memory also called working memory, is used in everyday life. It allows him to memorize enough information about his immediate environment in order to ensure his survival.

Long-term memory cat

At present, no studies can accurately assess the duration of long-term memory in cats. However, some experiences show that your four-legged friend may remember certain events for up to three years. This memory is selective and only events with a specific value are maintained. Studies have also shown that cats’ cognitive decline decreases with age, usually from the age of twelve.

Spatial memory of a cat

Cats with memories of places allow her to explore things that she finds interesting in her community. For example, she will be able to find a place for her plate, even if you removed it. He memorized the area as he feeds. The same goes for his garbage. It memorizes its position and if you move it, there is a good chance that it will free itself from the position it memorized, even if it does not exist. It is also this memory that allows him to find his way home when he is out.

Episodic memory

In the 2017 study, scientists wanted to know if cats have episodic memory, meaning if they remembered events that corresponded to their condition (time, what, and where). To do this, they placed it in four bowls filled with food of different sizes and shapes.

Cats were placed individually in a room where they found two bowls. The results show that the cats chose their bowl randomly. They were then taken out of the room for 15 minutes and then brought back inside. The foxes then headed straight for the bowl that they had not touched and thus had plenty of food. Experiments show that cats remember “where”. In the second phase of the experiment, researchers filled two plates with food, one empty plate and one with an inedible container. They brought different cats into the room which, during this inspection, suddenly went into a bowl with food.

After being removed for 15 minutes they were ushered back into the house and headed for a bowl that was very full, completely ignoring the empty and empty one. This suggests that their behavior is unorganized and that it may be an option on the part of the cat. These experiments have made it possible to determine where a cat remembers “where” and “what”, two parts of episodic memory, which are very useful in its daily life.

Cat memory and learning

If we do not have a preconceived notion of being able to remember a cat, something is real, able to learn from experience, interesting or not.

A fallen cat is very suspicious when it hears a car approaching, or as soon as it falls into a pool in the middle of the snow, it avoids it in the future … We still have a lot to learn from the cat and how it’s memories work. But you can be sure that cats remember past experiences and are able to learn from their experiences.

How does Feline memory work?

As in other animals and humans, feline memory resides in one of the brain lobs. A cat’s brain absorbs less than 1% of its body weight, but when it comes to memory and intelligence, the number of neurons makes a difference.

In fact, cats contain 300 million neurons. Do you not know what this means? Just so you can get advice, dogs have only 160 million of them, which makes cats’ biological memory more abundant. Studies have reported that cats’ short-term memory time is around 4 pm, allowing them to remember things that happened recently. Therefore, in order for these events to go on in the long run, they must be of great importance to the cat, so that it can organize and store this information as “useful in the future”. The exact nature of this arrangement is still unknown.

The memory of these pets, over the selection, is episodic as well. That is, they are able to remember where they are, other people, cultures, positive and negative events, etc. because they have experienced them and according to the intensity of the emotions that occurred during these events, they retain or do not remember them in memory. their cerebral cortex. As human beings, several studies have been successful in showing that in a large number of animals, cognitive decline (memory) decreases and loses as they get older, this condition is called “Cognitive dysfunction”.feline”. It affects cats 12 years and older. Unfortunately, not all cats suffer from it.

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