• rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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    10 hours ago

    The resemblance to baby vocalizations can be rather unsettling with some cats. I suppose it’s somewhat natural since they’re about the same size as a newborn human, but specifically adopting somewhat human-like (and thus baby-like, because that’s the one they can imitate the best) vocalization doesn’t seem that far-fetched.

    • SwampYankee@mander.xyz
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      9 hours ago

      I mean, I’m not sure cats are out there observing human babies and intentionally imitating them. They have pattern recognition machines in their heads just like we do. “Make noise = human pay attention” is about as complex as this gets. The fact that we’re susceptible to the specific timbre of their voices seems likely to be evolutionary coincidence.

      • jumperalex@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        Yes and, you missed the last crucial step

        “Make noise = human pay attention” “Human feeds and protects me = more kittens that probably know to pay attention” … “Profit”