Why does a cat watch TV?

Cat vision and human vision are different. Cats also have binocular, three-dimensional vision, but due to the special structure of the pupil at dusk, caudates see much better than humans. The distance at which pet items are most clear varies from 1 to 5 meters. By the way, due to the special arrangement of the eyes, a cat can perfectly determine the distance to an object, that is, the eye of a cat is much better than that of a person. It used to be thought that cats were color blind, but recent research has shown that this is not the case. It’s just that the spectrum of perceived colors in cats is much narrower. Due to the structure of the eye, a cat can see an object from 20 meters, and people from 75.

The flickering of a standard TV at 50 Hz is not perceived by the human eye, while the caudate ones also react to a slight twitch in the picture.

Basically, the love of cats for TV is connected with this. All caudates are born hunters, and therefore, any moving object is perceived as a game. Seeing a fast-moving object on the screen for the first time, the cat immediately decides to catch it. True, cats are too smart to fall for this bait more than two or three times. Pets can quite easily figure out that the desired prey lives inside a strange box, and therefore chasing it is a futile exercise. The cat will not bother itself next time with useless gestures, but it will watch the process with interest.

What do cats like to watch?

Specialists from the University of Central Lancashire found that dogs are interested in watching videos about other dogs. But what about cats?

Scientists have found that cats distinguish between the movement of animate and inanimate objects on the screen. Falling leaves of caudates are unlikely to attract, by the way, like the flight of the ball, but the players running after this ball, or the hunting of a cheetah, will cause interest.

Pets are able to distinguish a cartoon character from a real animal. The thing is that a cat is able to process large amounts of information faster than a person. That is why the cartoon character will not be perceived by the caudate as a living character: there is movement, but it is not as accurate as in real life.

True, the cat is unlikely to perceive the television picture as a whole, as a program or a film; according to scientists, cats believe that all the characters are hiding inside the TV case.

As for favorite programs, according to statistics, cats, like dogs, love to watch the “adventures” of their own kind. By the way, on Russian television there was even an attempt to create an advertisement aimed specifically at cats. But the experiment failed, because the TV showed a serious drawback – it does not transmit odors. And cats are guided not only by sight, but also by smell.

Photo: Collection