The Cat's Purr

[Margret]

Cats are mysterious creatures, and one of their biggest mysteries has always been their purr. Purring is a very low sound, around 20 to 30 hertz, and sounds that low typically require much larger vocal chords, elephant sized vocal chords, in fact. So how do cats do it? Well, there's a recent study that may have found the answer. It seems that the vocal chords of cats contain "unusual masses of fibrous tissue" which apparently increase the density of their vocal chords, and that can make the chords vibrate more slowly.

You can find a report that describes the study here: https://www.science.org/content/art...ilyLatestNews&et_rid=711711942&et_cid=4927794

Margret

 

[catloverfromwayback]

Intriguing!

This part, though: "As he notes, a cat will usually only purr when it feels safe, comfortable, and content—something that wouldn’t be possible if the felines had uncomfortable probes inserted into their larynxes. Until scientists find a way around that conundrum, this particular cat will likely remain in the bag."

Usually, yes, but cats also purr when they're in a lot of pain.

 

[Margret]

Which

Intriguing!

This part, though: "As he notes, a cat will usually only purr when it feels safe, comfortable, and content—something that wouldn’t be possible if the felines had uncomfortable probes inserted into their larynxes. Until scientists find a way around that conundrum, this particular cat will likely remain in the bag."

Usually, yes, but cats also purr when they're in a lot of pain.

Which is not an option we wish to point out to researchers.

So far, this has been totally ethical. No cats were so much as mildly inconvenienced, let alone injured. So, okay, some scientists are quibbling about whether it counts when it hasn't been proven on a live cat, but quibbling is all it is, and it sounds like sour grapes to me. As far as I'm concerned, they've figured it out. This theory makes a whole lot more sense than the theory that cats are actively moving their vocal chords at a rate of 20 to 30 Hz, which is so unlikely as to be laughable.

I'm a guitarist. I.e., I play a stringed instrument. There are three ways to change the frequency at which a string vibrates:
1. You can change the tension of the string. This is what we do to tune the guitar, and when the "string" is a vocal chord it's how we change pitch to sing.
2. You can make the string shorter or longer. This is what we do when we press the string down against a fret. And it's the reason men tend to have lower voices than women, and elephants have lower voices than cats.
3. You can make the string from a different material, nylon versus steel, for instance, or you can change the thickness or gauge of the string. This is why the low E string has a lower tone than the high E string, and this is what the experiment says is likely going on with cats. In fact, it appears that they've known for some time that feline vocal chords have a different composition than the vocal chords of most animals, so why haven't they asked what that does to feline voices? My best guess is that there were no guitarists among the scientists who were investigating it, because it looks to me, as a guitarist, like one of the first questions that should have been asked. And the answer they're coming up with matches the reality that every player of a stringed instrument lives with. Which is a long-winded way of saying that this theory makes sense, when no previous theory has.

Maybe someone else will come up with something better someday. But if so it won't be the people who are complaining because the experiment didn't use living cats. That sounds more like an injured ego talking than a serious scientist. And if they tried to experiment on cats by using pain to get them to purr PETA would be at their door in a flash. It may be worth using a painful experimental treatment when a cat is otherwise terminal, but it would be a travesty to inflict pain on cats just to prove a theory about how they purr.

Margret

 

[catloverfromwayback]

Which is not an option we wish to point out to researchers.

Hell no!

It just made me wonder how much that person knows about cats. The phenomenon of purrs as pain or stress relief is well known.

 

[Margret]

Hell no!

It just made me wonder how much that person knows about cats. The phenomenon of purrs as pain or stress relief is well known.

Of course the other possibility is that the author is very knowledgeable about cats and also doesn't want to point this out to researchers.

And I've noticed that some of the things we think of as common knowledge here on TCS are less common than we think. It's obvious to us, for instance, that declawing is abuse, but in the world at large there are still arguments about it.

Margret

 

[maggie101]

Cats are mysterious creatures, and one of their biggest mysteries has always been their purr. Purring is a very low sound, around 20 to 30 hertz, and sounds that low typically require much larger vocal chords, elephant sized vocal chords, in fact. So how do cats do it? Well, there's a recent study that may have found the answer. It seems that the vocal chords of cats contain "unusual masses of fibrous tissue" which apparently increase the density of their vocal chords, and that can make the chords vibrate more slowly.

You can find a report that describes the study here: https://www.science.org/content/art...ilyLatestNews&et_rid=711711942&et_cid=4927794

Margret

Thanks. I have thought of starting a thread
Did you know? Or interesting facts