Sunday, December 12, 2021

"Talking" cat is giving scientists new insights

Nicole Karlis, Salon via MSN, 12/12/21; Ashley Wells, Sheldon S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

A "talking" cat is giving scientists insight into how felines think
Billi is a 13-year-old domestic cat in Florida that presses a button that voices the word "dog" — twice.

She proceeds to sit as if she's waiting for her human parent, Kendra Baker, to respond.

"Dog outside, hmm?" Baker asks Billi, via the buttons. A few minutes later, Billi presses another button for "tummy," twice. 

"Accident or premeditated murder? You decide," Baker writes on the caption of the video on Instagram.




Those who follow the travails of internet-famous "talking" animals may be familiar with Bunny the Talking Dog, a TikTok-and-Instagram-famous pet.

Just like Bunny, Billi the cat uses an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device — essentially, a sound board made up of buttons with a different word vocally recorded on each — to "talk" to her human, Baker.

Baker, like Bunny's human parent, was inspired to attempt this means of animal-human communication after she observed Christina Hunger, a speech-language pathologist, who taught her dog Stella to use an AAC device.

Of course, unlike Bunny and Stella, Billi is a cat. And while dogs, as social animals, are renowned for being able to understand human speech, cats are a different matter.

That didn't stop Baker. At the start of the pandemic, when she found herself with extra time on her hands, Baker decided to order an AAC device to see if Billi could "talk," too.

"At that point Billi was the first cat that I knew of to try it," Baker tells Salon. "I hadn't seen any cats do it." More

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