Researcher Concludes Cats Can Manipulate People
I’m going to file this one under “science adds insight into what we already knew”. I see pets (both cats and dogs) who have owners wrapped around their phalanges on a daily basis!
From the July 31, 2009 issue of The Week.
What ‘meow’ really means
Cats are known to be manipulative, and a new study of their purring confirms just how clever they can be. Karen McComb, an animal-communication researcher at the University of Sussex in the U.K., analyzed the purrs of house cats as they begged their owners for food. She found that when cats were hungry, they altered their purring so that it was eerily similar to the cry of an infant. When McComb played back these cat cries to human listeners, people found them almost impossible to ignore. The mixture of frequencies in the sounds “subliminally triggers a sense of urgency,” McComb tells ABCnews.com. She suspects that this human-like vocalization is natural to cats, but that they learn to exaggerate it to get what they want from us.
Photo: Peeshy knows you will obey. Who could say no to her?
You have questions. 
Great read. Just as I suspected. My cat sapphire knows exactly how to get my attention during feeding time. However, I never realized it was quite this involved. Thanks again