I noticed her preference because if I lie on my left-hand side, she is a very happy little spoon and uses my arm as a pillow.
If I lie on my right-hand side, kitty is confused. She will take extra preparatory rotations hoping that one more turn will be enough for the problematic situation to resolve. After some hard stares, maybe an annoyed huff, she will reluctantly curl-up as a face-to-face non-spoon.
pugworthy · 2h ago
My boy Henry will always choose my right side, tucking under my arm and his head on my chest. Which is him in a "leftward" position then.
He'll work out some kind of arrangement if I'm laying on my left side and he can't lay on his left, but if I'm lying on my back it's always to the right.
It makes you wonder about cat-person compatibility based on the person's preference for how to lie down and the cat's preference.
wbl · 2h ago
I feel this publication could have used many more figures
fyrn_ · 1h ago
I agree, obviously purely for the scientific value of the sleeping cat pictures of course..
em-bee · 19m ago
i want the list of all 408 videos to verify the data and reproduce the results.
jfengel · 2h ago
I should take some data. I've got enough cats to border crazy-cat-lady territory. I had the impression that they sleep in random positions -- basically, whatever shape they were in when the urge to nap came upon them.
I'll keep an eye on them and see if they have a preference that I'd missed. It won't be all that useful -- if nothing else, the specific preferred sleeping places of my house could have more to do with my layout than any underlying mechanism in the cat. But I'd kinda like to know if there has been something staring me in the face all this time and I just didn't put it together.
amelius · 31m ago
Did they check if the outcome is different on the southern hemisphere?
ChrisMarshallNY · 1h ago
They literally got paid to watch cat videos on the Internet.
sonofhans · 1h ago
Yes, that feels like some sort of event horizon, doesn’t it? If you hook the humans up to a source of power it becomes self-sustaining … for the cats.
psunavy03 · 42m ago
Humans domesticated dogs, cattle, chickens, and scores of other animals.
Cats domesticated humans.
thealistra · 24m ago
The author declared no competing interests, but I bet they are a certified cat lover and therefore biased
iainmerrick · 21m ago
They're secretly funded by Big Cat.
Isamu · 3h ago
>To address this question, we analyzed 408 publicly available YouTube videos featuring a single cat in a clearly visible sleeping position while lying on one side, with an uninterrupted sleep duration of at least 10 seconds and full-body visibility from head to hind legs.
408 videos, showing bias towards leftward pose. They claim to have removed the mirrored videos from their samples.
No comments yet
a_e_k · 2h ago
This is hilarious. While I work, one of my cats loves to share my desk chair and sleep between me and the backrest (forcing me to sit closer to the front edge). I've noticed she favors lying on her left flank there, and she is, in fact, sleeping behind me like this right now.
(Anecdotal, but +1.)
On the other hand, she's one of a bonded pair and I'll sometimes see her and her sister sleeping curled next to each other with more varied chirality. Maybe a trusted friend outweighs this effect?
dhosek · 1h ago
That does fit with the hypothesis of the paper.
wiredfool · 3h ago
I prefer chirality for cats, they sleep either clockwise, counterclockwise, or possibly corkscrew.
mcculley · 1h ago
> we analyzed 408 publicly available YouTube videos
Does YouTube provide a way to search and download videos for such research purposes? Or does one have to use some tool that works around YouTube’s mechanisms that prevent downloading?
sneak · 1h ago
yt-dlp easily downloads everything/anything from youtube.
iandanforth · 3h ago
Am I crazy or are the cats pictured under the graph swapped? The cat under the "leftward" bar is curled the right and the cat under the "rightward" bar is curled to the left. Did they just decide that egocentrism in directions doesn't apply to cats?
ohxh · 3h ago
They say "thus, on average, about two-thirds of cats preferred to sleep on the left side of their body with their left shoulder down", and their image for leftward lateral bias shows this. So I guess leftward means "lying on their left side", not "curling left".
But, they suggest this is because "Upon awakening, a leftward sleeping position would provide a fast left visual field view of objects", which seems suspect. When my cats sleep on their left, it's their left eye that's obscured by their paw, and their right eye that has a better field of view!
apt-apt-apt-apt · 2h ago
They say 'leftward sleeping position would provide a fast left visual field', while showing a cat sleeping on its left side, with its right eye having the best view (left eye with a bad view).
Clearly, there is a contradiction. What's mystifying is that the authors seemingly spent lots of time on this exact directionality concept, yet put this contradiction in.
bbzylstra · 38m ago
Not a biologist, but my understanding is that the temporal part of the right eye (the part of the right eye closest to the temple and furthest from the nose) is responsible for processing the inner part of the left visual field, and is directly connected to the right hemisphere (no cross-over required).
grumblepeet · 3h ago
I came here to say the same thing. I’ve seen this multiple times today in several places and thought exactly that. Maybe they should have said clockwise (starting at the head) or counterclockwise?
jama211 · 2h ago
They defined the terms in the article, as leftward is lying on their left side, left shoulder down.
grumblepeet · 1h ago
Ahh thanks. I see it in the article now. This why I’m not a scientist!
lemming · 2h ago
Wait till I tell my daughter that someone's job is watching cat videos on the internet for science!
DonHopkins · 1h ago
My cat Emacs's signature move is the unlaterilized sploot, and I recently caught him sleeping on his back in an unlaterilized upside-down sploot!
I noticed her preference because if I lie on my left-hand side, she is a very happy little spoon and uses my arm as a pillow.
If I lie on my right-hand side, kitty is confused. She will take extra preparatory rotations hoping that one more turn will be enough for the problematic situation to resolve. After some hard stares, maybe an annoyed huff, she will reluctantly curl-up as a face-to-face non-spoon.
He'll work out some kind of arrangement if I'm laying on my left side and he can't lay on his left, but if I'm lying on my back it's always to the right.
It makes you wonder about cat-person compatibility based on the person's preference for how to lie down and the cat's preference.
I'll keep an eye on them and see if they have a preference that I'd missed. It won't be all that useful -- if nothing else, the specific preferred sleeping places of my house could have more to do with my layout than any underlying mechanism in the cat. But I'd kinda like to know if there has been something staring me in the face all this time and I just didn't put it together.
Cats domesticated humans.
408 videos, showing bias towards leftward pose. They claim to have removed the mirrored videos from their samples.
No comments yet
(Anecdotal, but +1.)
On the other hand, she's one of a bonded pair and I'll sometimes see her and her sister sleeping curled next to each other with more varied chirality. Maybe a trusted friend outweighs this effect?
Does YouTube provide a way to search and download videos for such research purposes? Or does one have to use some tool that works around YouTube’s mechanisms that prevent downloading?
But, they suggest this is because "Upon awakening, a leftward sleeping position would provide a fast left visual field view of objects", which seems suspect. When my cats sleep on their left, it's their left eye that's obscured by their paw, and their right eye that has a better field of view!
Clearly, there is a contradiction. What's mystifying is that the authors seemingly spent lots of time on this exact directionality concept, yet put this contradiction in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splooting
My tuxedo cat Napoleon is much more dignified, presenting a distinguished catloaf, while crossing his front paws with aristocratic grace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_and_the_Internet#Catloaf
Step 2 (Optional and not recommended): Become snooty about how to prepare your poultry for being smoked.