Clever Cats: Do They Utilize Change Blindness as a Covered Approaching Strategy?

Alexander Pastukhov,Claus-Christian Carbon

doi:10.1177/2041669521994597

Abstract

Sometimes, we do not notice big changes in our environment, if these changes occur while we perform eye movements or external events interrupt our perception. This striking phenomenon is known as “change blindness.” Research on chimpanzees, macaques, and pigeons suggests that change blindness may not be unique to humans, but our understanding is limited by the difficulty of carrying out change blindness experiments in animals. However, let’s have a look to the habitats of some of our most beloved four-legged friends: cats and dogs. Here, we list several online videos with cats and a husky appear to use humans’ change blindness to their advantage to sneak upon them. Thus, we might be able to deduce the effects of change blindness and other perceptual phenomena from animals’ behaviour. Our clear message: Watch more (cat) videos! Watch them as perceptual scientists by means of observing and analysing the cat’s behaviour.

Highlights

Sometimes, we do not notice big changes in our environment, if these changes occur while we perform eye movements or external events interrupt our perception
Change blindness refers to our occasional inability to notice surprisingly large changes in the world (Jensen et al, 2011)
The same blindness to large changes in the environment occurs in naturalistic settings, for example, while talking to a stranger (Simons & Levin, 1998), inspecting the stranger’s face (Utz & Carbon, 2020), or even making tea (Tatler, 2001)

Summary

Introduction

We do not notice big changes in our environment, if these changes occur while we perform eye movements or external events interrupt our perception. It reflects the limitation of our perceptual and cognitive system rather than the artificial nature of the flicker task (Carbon, 2014). The same blindness to large changes in the environment occurs in naturalistic settings, for example, while talking to a stranger (Simons & Levin, 1998), inspecting the stranger’s face (Utz & Carbon, 2020), or even making tea (Tatler, 2001).

Results

Conclusion