The urgent solicitation purr embedded with a cry

Owners often report that a hungry cat's purr is peculiarly hard to ignore, and this study found why. Acoustic analysis revealed that some purrs contain an embedded high-frequency, cry-like component in a range similar to a human infant's distress call. In playback tests, humans rated these solicitation purrs as more urgent and less pleasant than ordinary purrs, even when amplitude was controlled. The cat appears to exploit a sensory bias in human caregivers by hiding an exploitative cry within an otherwise contented sound. The paper is a striking example of interspecies manipulation through subtle acoustic structure.