cats watching TV

Some of our cats tend to like watching tennis. Rufous would stand on his
back legs and stare at the moving players.

--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv

Brad Snow wrote:
Saw this yesterday. People (well, women, of course claiming their
Bootsie watched TV. Scientific follow up:

Cats see faster than us. Have to, to see and pounce quickly. So we see
a TV picture, but cat sees the dots and lines from the beam hitting
the screen (dots and lines which translate into the picture we see).
So:
-Normal fast cat won't see/be interested in TV of birds or whatever,
and
-if your cat DOES watch TV, he's slow

I'm not too sure about that premise. Humans can "see fast" too - think
of those times when you've been exposed to just a flash of something,
but you've still been able to comprehend what it was that you saw. The
reason we are able to see televised image streams smoothly is that our
brains interpolate a continuous stream of rapidly changing images into a
smooth flow of information. At least, that's how it was explained to me
many years ago.

One of my cats, baby Tabitha, occasionally takes an interest in the TV.
She likes to sit close to the screen and try to touch moving things in
the lower part of the picture.

Dan

On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 09:12:41 GMT, wrote:

My cats are especially interested when there are cats on TV. They couldn't
care less about mice, birds or fish, but bring on a cat, even a big cat,
and they're riveted. One time I was watching a show about feral cats that
had a scene of a mother cat and newborn kittens. Roxy was transfixed - she
walked up to the TV, stood up on her hind legs, and put her paw on the
screen. Did she see the kittens, or just hear them? I don't know, but she
was convinced there were kittens in the big black box. At one point, she
ran around to the back of the TV, sure she'd find the kittens there. When
she didn't find anything, she came back around, looking befuddled.

Joyce

I've only seen two of our guys watch TV, and I certainly don't think
it has to do with lack of intelligence, considering they're probably
two of our smartest cats! (I even gave the "Cat IQ" test to them, and
Internet scored the highest.) Internet used to watch when I was
playing "Shining Force" on the Sega -- he reached his paw out to touch
the little characters as they moved around the screen -- too funny.

And Wolfie is, I think, a rather narcisstic cat -- lol! He will
"pose" for the camera. When a friend did a video of the cats for us,
he stopped and posed every time the thing was pointed his direction.
And during playback? Oh, my! He will sit and *stare* at the thing,
especially watching when he is on-screen. If it's another cat, I have
seen him go up to the TV, stretch up, and touch the cat on screen with
his paw.

Ginger-lyn

(Ginger-lyn Summer) had some very interesting
things to say about cats watching TV:

I've only seen two of our guys watch TV, and I certainly don't think
it has to do with lack of intelligence, considering they're probably
two of our smartest cats! (I even gave the "Cat IQ" test to them, and
Internet scored the highest.) Internet used to watch when I was
playing "Shining Force" on the Sega -- he reached his paw out to touch
the little characters as they moved around the screen -- too funny.

When I was younger, I had an Atari game system that hooked to the TV
[one of those big ones that sat on the floor and doubled as a piece of
furniture], and when playing Space Invaders or Breakout usually had a
lot more feline "help" than I really wanted. :-)

--
Seanette Blaylock
"You attribute perfect rationality to the whole of humanity, which has
to be one of the most misguided assumptions ever." - Alan Krueger in NANAE
[make obvious correction to address to send e-mail]

I borrowed Volume I of "The Bird Show" from our local library, just to find
out if the cats would watch it. The only one that showed an interest was
Baby Eyes. She not only showed interest, she sat and watched THE WHOLE TAPE,
55 minutes, without interruption!

I of course got out the camcorder and caught her in the act. Will post
stills from it soon.


"Brad Snow" wrote in message
...
Saw this yesterday. People (well, women, of course claiming their
Bootsie watched TV. Scientific follow up:

Cats see faster than us. Have to, to see and pounce quickly. So we see
a TV picture, but cat sees the dots and lines from the beam hitting
the screen (dots and lines which translate into the picture we see).
So:
-Normal fast cat won't see/be interested in TV of birds or whatever,
and
-if your cat DOES watch TV, he's slow

Saw this yesterday. People (well, women, of course

Why women "of course"?? I have to disagree with that one, as my DH insists on
leaving the TV on so Yoda doesn't miss "Big Cat Diaries."

claiming their
Bootsie watched TV. Scientific follow up:

Cats see faster than us. Have to, to see and pounce quickly. So we see
a TV picture, but cat sees the dots and lines from the beam hitting
the screen (dots and lines which translate into the picture we see).
So:
-Normal fast cat won't see/be interested in TV of birds or whatever,
and
-if your cat DOES watch TV, he's slow

I still disagree!!
Yoda *only* watches basketball or Big Cat Diaries. I'll concede that the
*sounds* on BCD probably help capture his interest, but basketball? If he only
saw lines & dots, he wouldn't care what he watched.
I don't know what his favorite team is. I'll ask him and get back to you.

Sherry