Cats don’t always appreciate human music like rap, heavy metal, or anything by Justin Bieber. That’s why a study for the journal Applied Animal Behavioral Science claims that many animals respond favorably to species-specific music that takes into account a particular animal’s favorite sounds, hearing range, commonly used tones and other factors.
“Here we found that cats showed orientation and approach behavior toward the speaker with the cat music, often rubbing against the speaker while the music was on,” lead author Charles Snowdon of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said.
“We looked at the natural vocalizations of cats and matched our music to the same frequency range, which is about an octave or more higher than human voices,” Snowdon said. “We incorporated tempos that we thought cats would find interesting — the tempo of purring in one piece and the tempo of suckling in another — and since cats use lots of sliding frequencies in their calls, the cat music had many more sliding notes than the human music.”
If you thought your cat didn’t appreciate your singing, perhaps you’re not singing music that a cat would like. Then again, maybe you need signing lessons. To read more about how music geared specifically for cats can influence their behavior, click here.
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