Electronic Cat Brain- Coming Right Up

I wonder why the cat was chosen over other animals? Although all species, including the human, can be easily distracted it seems like the cat is particularly so. I know mine will suddenly go tearing across the lawn and up a tree for what appears to be no reason. I would not like my computer to do that while I was using it.

Perhaps the choice was made for the focus during hunting. Little seems to distract a cat while it's focused on its prey.

Hello, SavvyExacta. From the link:

A cat can recognize a face faster and more efficiently than a supercomputer.

That's one reason a feline brain is the model for a biologically-inspired computer project involving the University of Michigan.

post script: thanks, Milo. This is pretty interesting.

I did skim through the article and see that line. I just wondered why a cat opposed to another animal? I'm sure there are other animals that recognize faces just as quickly. The rest of my post was tongue-in-cheek example. :)

Cats have been studied a lot. They have this interesting dichotomy: on the one hand, they are cognitively uncooperative. No tricks, thanx. On the other hand, their physical responses to stimuli have a remarkable cooperative quality. They are like putty. This is why a cat can survive being thrown out of a second storey window, the "nine lives" reputation due to flexibility, shock absorbance motion responses etc. The part of cat's brain that controls its body is powerfully programmed to "go with the flow".

One of the earliest successes of electrical stimulator prosthetics involved walking an anaesthetized cat around a room. I bet it looked very smooth. Not so transferable in a human, however. And think about dogs: the opposite of the cat. Cognitively cooperative, but physically.... awkward.

So I would guess, another reason for modeling on a cat's brain, is with robotics applications in mind - the goal of fluid, controlled physical movement.

The flowchart for the electronic cat brain has only four boxes on it.

1) Only eat food human purchased and prepared if it is expensive and smells bad.
2) Dispose of used food. Use cat box if human cleaned it. Use floor if cat box not cleaned
3) Ignore human and refuse to play. Be rude. Never show any personality above "cat-a-tonic"
4) Sleep

Too funny. Rosie and I had a good purrr over that one!

You sure you are not a dog? Retrieve is an awful strong word for a Cat don't you think, maybe in the case of a cat chase is more appropriate. Retrieve implies you brought the balls back to who ever threw them.

Indeed, I brought back the shiny silver paper balls so they could be flicked again...until I was fed up with the game of course.
Sometimes I'd catch 'em in the air or whack 'em with my paw
Del