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When you hear about animals being trained to help people, the stories often involve dogs… or maybe a less common breed, like a miniature horse. After all, it’s not uncommon to hear stories about cats that sniff bombs or cats that guide the blind.
Why is that? Are some species, such as dogs, smarter than domesticated cats? That is a difficult question with no easy answer.
About Feline Intelligence
Examining the mental abilities of animals presents many unique challenges. While dogs are generally eager to please and can be trained to perform various tasks for food rewards, our cats are generally less eager to learn different types of tasks than dogs. In fact, cats are notoriously averse to the idea of participating in research studies!
The notoriously inattentive nature of cats can create unique challenges in testing animal intelligence. This requires researchers to be more creative in their approach, making it difficult to compare the intelligence of cats to other species.
What Do We Know About the Cat’s Brain?
A typical cat’s brain is about 5 cm (2 in) long and weighs 5–30 g (0.88–1.06 oz). Although the size of the cat’s brain is smaller, both visually and as a percentage of body weight, than the brain of dogs and the brain of humans, the structure of the cat’s brain is very similar to that of the human brain.
Also read: 10 interesting facts about the Cat Brain
Like humans, a cat’s brain has surface folding patterns that increase the relative surface area of its brain. This increase in area is thought to improve cognition (complex thinking) and overall brain function.
Are Cats Smarter Than Dogs?
Despite being so different, there are striking similarities between cats and dogs. StunningArt / Shutterstock.com
When we examine the intelligence of different species, we often look at the number of neurons within the animal’s brain.
A 2016 study counted the number of nerve cells within the cerebral cortex of the brain (a region of the brain thought to be directly involved in intelligence) in several animal species.
Researchers found that cats have twice as many cortical neurons (300 million) than dogs (160 million), which was taken as evidence that cats are smarter than dogs.
Although conflicting findings have been observed in other studies, these conflicting studies involved small sample sizes and therefore should not be taken as the final word in the dog vs. cat debate. Although many studies have been conducted, clear, consistent results are not yet available.
In fact, it is important to note that there are significant challenges in quantifying precise neuron numbers within a species’ brain. Counting neurons is unlikely to resolve the age-old debate of which species are smarter, cats or dogs?
Also Read: Are Cats Smarter Than Dogs? Scientists Finally Have the Answer
However, it is safe to say that cats have a complex brain that bears a number of similarities to our brains. The brain structure of cats suggests that they are intelligent animals that can solve problems.
How Smart Are Cats Compared to Humans?
But what about your cat, in particular? It might be time to give your cat an intelligence test. Rapit Design / Shutterstock.com
Several home tests have been suggested to help cat owners assess their pets’ intelligence. These tests compare a cat’s performance on certain tasks to the expected performance of a human child of a certain age.
How Smart Is Your Cat?
The first test should be done in a quiet room, using your cat’s favorite toy.
Let your cat see that you have a toy, then hide it behind something hard (like a cardboard box). Does your cat think the toy has disappeared, or does it go looking for the toy in the back of the box? When your cat goes for a toy, it shows a grasping of the permanent object.
This refers to the idea that things continue to exist, even when we cannot see them; the toy does not just disappear because it is no longer visible. For humans, this concept is understood around one to two years of age so, if your cat passes this test, it is at least as smart as a one-year-old human.
Next, take a toy that can move (like a rolling ball or an inflatable toy) and show it to your cat.
Allow your cat to see how it goes, and place the toy where it will go behind or under a hard object.
Does your cat correctly predict where the toy will come from, or does it keep looking for where the toy has disappeared? If your cat correctly predicts where the toy will reappear and waits for it in that spot, your cat is as smart as a typical two-year-old!
Although those two tests are interesting, human strength becomes less predictable after childhood.
All children develop at different stages, which makes it difficult to set a standard age for the performance of psychological tests.
How to Test Cat Intelligence
However, there are many other questions you can ask yourself to test your cat’s intelligence.
- Is your cat reluctant to go into her cat carrier? If so, this suggests that your cat has a long-term memory of previous negative experiences associated with the carrier (such as a visit to the vet or a long car ride).
- Does your cat ever scratch at an outside door, wanting to go out, even though you haven’t taken it out that door in the past? If so, this suggests that your cat has learned the purpose of that door by observing you and your family members.
- Has your cat ever opened the drawer to get to the cat food or other desired item? If so, this behavior shows your cat’s problem-solving skills.
- Has your cat trained you to feed him at a certain time, using meows or other attention-getting behavior? If so, this shows an understanding of cause and effect (meowing or other behavior causes you to put food in the bowl!) and an understanding of the concept of time.
Cats have evolved to show their intelligence in ways that may not be immediately apparent to us humans. For this reason, it can be challenging to accurately and honestly assess your cat’s intelligence. However, the available evidence shows that cats are much smarter than most people give them credit for!
Frequently Asked Questions
How smart is a cat compared to a human?
There is no good way to compare animal intelligence to human intelligence, but performance in cognitive tests suggests that cats are as smart as toddlers. They may be more intelligent, but they are generally unwilling to participate in psychological testing.
What kind of cat is the smartest?
Although it is challenging to measure cat intelligence, many cat owners consider Abyssinians, Siamese, Bengals, and Burmese cats to be the most intelligent. Their perceived intelligence is largely based on how they interact with their human owners.
Which is smarter, cats or dogs?
The debate between cats and dogs never ends. When it comes to intelligence, no clear data can resolve this debate one way or the other. Many studies have been conducted, but the results differ between these studies.
What is the IQ of a cat?
There is no equivalent IQ test for cats, and since IQ is based entirely on the average score of a given population, it makes no sense to apply that distribution to other species.