Context effects on duration, fundamental frequency, and intonation inhuman-directed domestic cat meows

In this study, we investigated the prosody of domestic cat meows produced in different contexts. Prosodic cues –i.e., variation in intonation, duration, voice quality and fundamental frequency – in humans as well as innonhuman animals carry information about idiosyncratic traits of the signaller, including sex, age, and physicaland mental state. The duration, fundamental frequency (F0) and intonation in a sample of 969 meows recordedin seven different contexts (i.e., cuddle, door, food, greeting, lifting, play, cat carrier) were analysed using linearmixed effects regression and generalized additive models. In this, we controlled for cat age and sex, as meowsproduced by old cats had lower mean F0 than those produced by young cats, and female cats produced meowswith higher mean F0 than male cats. We found significant effects of context on duration and mean F0, but not onF0 range. Furthermore, the results showed that the intonation of meows produced by cats in a cat carrier displayeda falling pattern, while that of meows produced in cuddle and door contexts was relatively level, and thatof meows produced in the other contexts consisted of combinations of rising and falling. The average slope ofmeows produced in cat carrier and play contexts was negative, while that of meows produced in the othercontexts was positive. We argue that this prosodic variation reflects the cats’ mental or emotional state, becauseof valence and arousal differences associated with the various contexts that were included in the study. Furtherstudies will need to confirm this. In addition, we also plan additional analyses of spectral and voice qualityparameters in meows and other cat vocalisation types.