Socio-spatial cognition in cats: Mentally mapping owner’s location from voice

予期せぬ場所から聞こえる飼い主の声にびっくり --ネコは耳で飼い主の位置を捉えている--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-11-22.Many animals probably hold mental representations about the whereabouts of others; this is a form of socio-spatial cognition. We tested whether cats mentally map the spatial position of their owner or a familiar cat to the source of the owner’s or familiar cat’s vocalization. In Experiment 1, we placed one speaker outside a familiar room (speaker 1) and another (speaker 2) inside the room, as far as possible from speaker 1, then we left the subject alone in the room. In the habituation phase, the cat heard its owner’s voice calling its name five times from speaker 1. In the test phase, shortly after the 5th habituation phase vocalization, one of the two speakers played either the owner’s voice or a stranger’s voice calling the cat’s name once. There were four test combinations of speaker location and sound: Same[sound] Same[location], Same[sound] Diff[location], Diff[sound] Same[location], Diff[sound] Diff[location]. In line with our prediction, cats showed most surprise in the Same[sound] Diff[location] condition, where the owner suddenly seemed to be in a new place. This reaction disappeared when we used cat vocalizations (Experiment 2) or non-vocal sounds (Experiment 3) as the auditory stimuli. Our results suggest that cats have mental representations about their out-of-sight owner linked to hearing the owner’s voice, indicating a previously unidentified socio-spatial cognitive ability

A Case of Liver Abscess with Desulfovibrio desulfuricans

Desulfovibrio spp. are gram-negative, sulfate-reducing, and anaerobic bacteria found in the digestive tract of humans. Because Desulfovibrio spp. are infrequent causative agents of infectious diseases and are difficult to isolate and to identify from clinical specimens, the appropriate antibiotic therapy to infection with Desulfovibrio spp. has not been determined. We report the first case of liver abscess with bacteremia due to Desulfovibrio desulfuricans to show the clinical presentation and treatment. The patient was successfully treated with intravenous piperacillin-tazobactam and oral amoxicillin-clavulanic acid

Acute Zonal Occult Outer Retinopathy in Japanese Patients : Clinical Features, Visual Function, and Factors Affecting Visual Function

Purpose To evaluate the clinical features and investigate their relationship with visual function in Japanese patients with acute zonal occult outer retinopathy (AZOOR). Methods Fifty-two eyes of 38 Japanese AZOOR patients (31 female and 7 male patients; mean age at first visit, 35.0 years; median follow-up duration, 31 months) were retrospectively collected: 31 untreated eyes with good visual acuity and 21 systemic corticosteroid-treated eyes with progressive visual acuity loss. Variables affecting the logMAR values of best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and the mean deviation (MD) on Humphrey perimetry at initial and final visits were examined using multiple stepwise linear regression analysis. Results In untreated eyes, the mean MD at the final visit was significantly higher than that at the initial visit (P = 0.00002). In corticosteroid-treated eyes, the logMAR BCVA and MD at the final visit were significantly better than the initial values (P = 0.007 and P = 0.02, respectively). The final logMAR BCVA was 0.0 or less in 85% of patients. Variables affecting initial visual function were moderate anterior vitreous cells, myopia severity, and a-wave amplitudes on electroretinography; factors affecting final visual function were the initial MD values, female sex, moderate anterior vitreous cells, and retinal atrophy. Conclusions Our data indicated that visual functions in enrolled patients significantly improved spontaneously or after systemic corticosteroids therapy, suggesting that Japanese patients with AZOOR have good visual outcomes during the follow-up period of this study. Furthermore, initial visual field defects, gender, anterior vitreous cells, and retinal atrophy affected final visual functions in these patients

Cats match voice and face: cross-modal representation of humans in cats (Felis catus)

We examined whether cats have a cross-modal representation of humans, using a cross-modal expectancy violation paradigm originally used with dogs by Adachi et al. (Anim Cogn 10:17–21, 2007). We compared cats living in houses and in cat cafés to assess the potential effect of postnatal experience. Cats were presented with the face of either their owner or a stranger on a laptop monitor after playing back the voice of one of two people calling the subject’s name. In half of the trials the voice and face were of the same person (congruent condition) whereas in the other half of trials the stimuli did not match (incongruent condition). The café cats paid attention to the monitor longer in incongruent than congruent conditions, showing an expectancy violation. By contrast, house cats showed no similar tendency. These results show that at least café cats can predict their owner’s face upon hearing the owner’s voice, suggesting possession of cross-modal representation of at least one human. There may be a minimal kind or amount of postnatal

Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

日常生活の中でネコは友達のネコの名前を学習する. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-04-25.Humans communicate with each other through language, which enables us talk about things beyond time and space. Do non-human animals learn to associate human speech with specific objects in everyday life? We examined whether cats matched familiar cats’ names and faces (Exp.1) and human family members’ names and faces (Exp.2). Cats were presented with a photo of the familiar cat’s face on a laptop monitor after hearing the same cat’s name or another cat’s name called by the subject cat’s owner (Exp.1) or an experimenter (Exp.2). Half of the trials were in a congruent condition where the name and face matched, and half were in an incongruent (mismatch) condition. Results of Exp.1 showed that household cats paid attention to the monitor for longer in the incongruent condition, suggesting an expectancy violation effect; however, café cats did not. In Exp.2, cats living in larger human families were found to look at the monitor for increasingly longer durations in the incongruent condition. Furthermore, this tendency was stronger among cats that had lived with their human family for a longer time, although we could not rule out an effect of age. This study provides evidence that cats link a companion's name and corresponding face without explicit training

Clinical Features of the Present Study and a Previous Study.^#

<p>^# Gass JDM et al., Am J Ophthalmol 2002;</p><p>* Median (range);</p><p>BCVA = best-corrected visual acuity</p><p>Clinical Features of the Present Study and a Previous Study.<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0125133#t004fn001" target="_blank">^#</a></p

Visual Field Findings at Onset of AZOOR in 52 Eyes with AZOOR.

<p>AZOOR = acute zonal occult outer retinopathy</p><p>BSE = blind spot enlargement; PCS = paracentral scotoma</p><p>Visual Field Findings at Onset of AZOOR in 52 Eyes with AZOOR.</p