Turns Out Cats Are Not Curious. They Just Like Being Right.

The saying goes that curiosity killed the cat. A new study from the University of Sussex suggests the cat was never that curious to begin with.

Researchers set out to test whether cats demonstrate what's called level 6 object permanence — the understanding that objects continue to exist even when moved out of sight in a way that isn't directly observed. This cognitive ability is documented in dogs, some apes and human infants. The standard test for it is called a violation-of-expectancy paradigm: show the subject something surprising and measure whether they react more strongly to the weird outcome than the predictable one. Babies stare longer at the impossible thing. Dogs do too.

Cats did the opposite.

In an experiment modeled on sleight-of-hand, a toy was placed in one of two boxes, which were then obscured, moved and either swapped or returned to their original positions. The toy was revealed in either the expected or unexpected location, and researchers measured how long cats looked at it. Cats were more interested when the toy showed up where they expected it to be, and more likely to play with it when it reappeared in the original location.

As lead researcher Jemma Forman put it: "Cats were able to discriminate between expected and unexpected events, but in the opposite direction of what our existing knowledge in infants and dogs would otherwise suggest."

Familiarity and routine matter more to cats than novelty, especially in unfamiliar situations or around strangers. Co-author Jordan Rowe noted that cats can be avoidant around unfamiliar humans, which affects their engagement in cognitive tasks. Cats were more likely to play with the toy but less likely to interact with the boxes when a stranger ran the experiment rather than their owner.

The researchers say the findings push toward developing more cat-friendly methods for studying feline cognition. The study also found that sex, breed and household setup influenced behavior: female, indoor-only and mixed-breed cats were more likely to show interest in the toy, as were those from multi-cat homes.

Cats don't explore to discover. They explore to verify. There's a difference, and they sorted it out before you got home.

Read the full story at ナゾロジー (Nazology), May 14, 2025

Hot Take: Every person who has ever spent real money on a "stimulating" cat toy and watched the cat walk directly back to the same warm patch of floor already knew this. The study just confirmed that the cat had a plan and you weren't part of it.