Cats are among the most brilliant animals and top-rated on the intelligence list. but their intelligence has long proved tough to quantify.
Cats tend to do their own thing in an experimental situation or find it too unpleasant to behave naturally, making it challenging to measure feline intellect objectively. You’ll also agree with me that cats like to be left alone.
Cat intelligence refers to a domesticated cat’s ability to solve issues and adapt to its surroundings.
As a long-time cat owner, I’ve learned that cats express their intelligence by the manners they spring surprises and claim ownership of their areas.
The way my cat tries to defend me in her limited abilities, her awareness of her mealtime, and, most interestingly, how she kept a mouse intact without mauling it before sharing convinced me that cats are intelligent.
Feline intelligence, according to researchers, includes the ability to learn new behaviors that apply knowledge to new settings, communicate wants and desires within a social group, and respond to training cues.
Explanation of Cat Brain in General
According to studies, cats have a brain structure similar to other intelligent animals, including humans.
The domesticated cat’s brain is roughly five centimeters (2.0 in) in length and weighs 25–30 g (0.88–1.06 oz). Intelligence is housed in the brain.
If a typical cat is 60 cm (24 in) long and weighs 3.3 kg (7.3 lb), the brain accounts for 0.91 per cent of total body mass, whereas the brain accounts for 2.33 per cent of total body mass in the average person.
Often, less attention is paid to the brain-to-body size ratio. Surface folding brain structure (comparable to humans) is essential in determining intelligence, not brain size.
Cat brains are divided into several sections with specific duties that are widely interconnected and communicate sensory information in a kind of hub-and-spoke network, with a high number of specialized hubs and many alternate paths between them.
The brain uses this flow of sensory information to create a complex perspective of the natural world and react to and manipulate its surroundings.
The creation of perspective is the foundation for behaviorists’ belief that an adult cat’s intelligence is similar to a 2-year-old human toddler.
According to studies, cats have object permanence recognition or awareness of objects that aren’t visible.
Cats have a more vital ability to learn new information, integrate it with previous knowledge, retain it, and apply it to new situations.
It’s no surprise that feline cognitive capacities are vast.
Factors Influencing Cat Intelligence
Cat intelligence is determined by its ability to learn as soon as possible and adapt to its surroundings. Adaptation is measured by associating with humans and getting along with other animals.
Observational Learning Process: The process is a procedure in which kittens watch their mothers do an experimentally organized act by an elated adult mother.
Due to the kittens’ lack of access to any adult feline to learn from, the learning process is seen to be faster as compared to learning by kittens placed in trial-and-error situations.
Overall, findings from various research demonstrated that cats learn by trial and error, with some unintentional success thrown in for good measure. When a procedure is repeated, perfection and skill emerge.
Other broad contributors to a cat’s intellect, according to studies, include the process of domestication and evolutionary genetic change through breeding processes.
The domestication process: The association of felines with humans has given an enriched and stimulating setting for the domestication process. As a result, sociability and readiness to connect with owners significantly impact cat intellect.
Because of their exceptional ability to get along with humans, Abyssinians, Siamese, and Bengals are regarded among the most intelligent cat breeds.
Aside from these cats’ expert handling of toys within their reach, I’ve seen some of them manage human gear flawlessly, such as a sound system, after watching their owners go through the procedure.
Diseases (feline cognitive dysfunction-FCD)- Cat memory may be affected by diseases like feline cognitive dysfunction (FCD), similar to Alzheimer’s disease in humans. Disorientation, diminished social contact, sleep difficulties, and loss of house training are symptoms of FCD. The functional impairment is caused by degenerative changes in the brain caused by FCD.
Is Cat Intelligence Affected by Age?
Intelligence is defined as learning from a situation, retaining that knowledge, and applying it to new situations to solve issues.
Cats have exceptional memories when seen as a whole. Cat’s memory has an information-retention or recall of up to ten years under experimental situations.
Relationships with people, intellectual differences, and age, on the other hand, may all have an impact on remembering. Because cats can adapt their memories of previous surroundings throughout their lives, they can readily adjust to their current environment.
In kittens—The period when a cat is a kitten is when it learns and memorizes survival skills, which it acquires from observation of its mothers and interaction with other cats.
Playing is more than just fun for a kitten; it is also necessary to establish social order, sharpen hunting skills, and prepare for adult tasks.
Kittens associate with other cats during the first two to seven weeks of their lives, and it is during this time that they are most vulnerable. It has been hypothesized that if the cat were not exposed to humans at this time, the cat would eternally mistrust humans, or at the very least, it would take a long time for the mistrust to dissolve.
They may also be hesitant to extend trust gained with a small group of nonthreatening persons to strangers. Any kitten exposed at the stage does not trust strangers again.
In Older cats: Memory loss is a possibility in senior cats, just as it is in people. Some cats may suffer from a loss of learning ability and memory that affects them in similar ways to those seen in elderly humans.
It’s natural for functions to slow down, and memory is no exception. Memory loss may occur as people age because their brain stores information changes, making it more challenging to recall previously stored information.
Cats, like humans, lose brain cells as they age. These alterations can have a more significant impact on a cat’s memory as it gets older.
There hasn’t been any research on the memories of aging cats, but it’s possible that, like humans, short-term memory is increasingly impacted by age. Cats’ short-term memory lasted roughly 16 hours in one test of where to obtain food.
Steps to Boosting and Protecting Your Cat’s Intelligence
Almost all species experience mental decline as they age, and our cats are no exception. The following are some tips for keeping our cats’ minds sharp as they become older:
1. Provide them with Enriching and Mentally Challenging Activities: This will help them channel their energy in a constructive direction while also reducing boredom and apathy.
Engagement of cats also decreases boredom and monotony in the cat’s existence. The engagement can take the form of various levels of puzzle-solving abilities. The activities may entail teaching your cat new skills, which necessitates a high level of patience.
2. Get them involved in clicker training: this is a brain workout that entails teaching your cat to do things like “high-paws” or “turn over” and rewarding them with a goodie when they do it correctly.
3. Solve food puzzles: This entails requiring your cat to navigate a puzzle to locate concealed food. When paired with clicker training, this becomes much more interesting.
4. Involve your cat in an outdoor leash walk: It’s not as strange as it sounds like walking your cat on a leash.
Consider taking them for leash walks to broaden their horizons if you have an indoor cat.
5. Teaching your cat a new skill, such as following you or wearing a harness, are both learning opportunities.
Cat Breeds with the Most Intelligence
The list of cat breeds that make up the breeds of the most intelligent cat breeds below was compiled using significant contributing elements such as trainability, ability to surprise, and overall display of confidence around territorial authority.
The following are the exceptionally clever cats with very fast cognitive capacities, while this is based on experience and hence debatable:
- Scottish fold
- Cornish Rex
- Havana brown
- Abyssinian
- Russian blues
- Burmese
- Persian
- Siamese
- Bombay
- Korat
- Balinese
- Singapura
- Sphinx
- Bengal
- Savannah.
How Intelligent are Cats Compared to Other Pets?
Cats are unusually clever, ingenious and resourceful, even compared to dogs. Cats appear incredibly intelligent; they always seem aware of our activities.
While debating which pet is more intelligent among common pet groupings such as cats, dogs, horses, birds, snakes, and a variety of others is entertaining, the availability of information on each pet category impacts the validity of the facts presented.
However, it has been noticed that the intelligence of dogs and cats is in direct competition.
There are undeniably more facts on dog intelligence, particularly trainability, but there is less content for dogs.
Cats have been observed to predict our every action and know what we’re thinking over time, yet we never feel like we know what’s going on in their heads.
Cats are thought to be more clever and intriguing than dogs since they refuse to follow human manipulations and commands, especially in experimental settings, because they have their minds and refuse to do useless activities to satisfy their masters.
After studying a variety of pets over a lengthy period, cats appear to be the clear leaders when it comes to a never-ending desire to solve riddles.
Cats have an unrivalled independent fighting spirit when addressing problems, especially when other pets, such as dogs, are still seeking their owners for assistance.