Cats mentally map their owner's location from voice

This experiment tested whether cats hold a spatial representation of unseen humans. A cat was placed in a room while its owner's voice was played from a speaker at one location, then, after a delay, from a speaker on the opposite side, an impossible teleportation. Cats showed heightened surprise in this incongruent condition, suggesting they expected the owner to remain where the voice first came from and were startled when it jumped. The findings imply cats form socio-spatial mental representations and track absent individuals, evidence of a form of object permanence applied to social partners rather than just physical objects.