What do cats remember?

Like humans, cats have memories for events that happened a short time ago, and they have memories for things that happened a long time ago.

Here, we describe what is known about cats’ memories. We also describe how scientists have reached those conclusions.

Cats’ short term memories

It is thought that cats can keep track of information in “short term memory” for a few seconds. Why do we think this? In one clever experiment, scientists put out a series of boxes and, while the cat was watching, hid something the cat wanted behind one of the boxes. If only a few seconds had passed, when the cat was allowed to approach the boxes, it would approach the one that was hiding the object. But, if more time had passed, the cat would no longer remember which box to approach.

Cats’ long-term memories

Repetition of information helps a cat to remember information for a longer period of time (This is the same for people, and is why practice is so important!)

One recent study even suggests that cats remember the names of other cats and humans they have lived with and can easily associate that name with the right face. Scientists reached this conclusion by measuring how long cats looked at faces when either the correct name was used or the incorrect name was used. Scientists found that cats looked longer when the incorrect name was used, as if the cat were confused or surprised by that mismatch. This measure of “looking time” is the same measure often used to figure out what infants know.

So, it turns out that cats have a pretty good memory!