Humans aren't the only ones who love a good tune.
Cats can also appreciate a good beat - as long as it's written in their pitch and tempo, according to a new study.
A team of researchers from University of Wisconsin-Madison studied 47 neutered, indoor cats at 23 homes that featured a range of breeds, gender and ages, the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel reported.
The cats were played four sound samples. Two of the songs were classical, and the other two songs were written specifically for cats by David Teie, a University of Maryland composer.
"We know growls or threat sounds are in a lower range, so we wanted to avoid those sounds. We picked tempos that would be interesting to cats, the beat of purring," Charles Snowdon, the lead author of the study, told the Journal Sentinel.
When the researchers played the music to the cats, they looked for positive responses such as purring and approaching the speaker to rub against it. These positive responses happened for an average of 110 seconds during the classical music, whereas they occurred for an average of 171 seconds during the songs specially designed for cats.
The results show that most cats love music, just not necessarily your music!
The study was published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science.
