I have hurt some of our four-legged family members - kicking them because I didn't see them, or stepping on their tail - and the very first thing they always want to know is if I did it on purpose or by accident.
I wonder why this would even be the subject of research? And if it were, how could you possibly conduct an ethical experiment around it?
I stop and tell her get how sorry I am, which did not make much sense and probably confuses the cat even more. Same with a dog (when I had one).
Thanks for the interesting comment about something I never have a deeper thought to.
Thanks for giving this some thought. Really, it does make sense to your dog or cat.
When cats play, they often will hurt each other a bit as they tumble and play. Same with dogs. Just watch their behavior afterward.
If they really meant to hurt each other, the attack will continue. If it was an accident, they will stop, smell each others' butts, see if everyone was OK, and then either take a rest or get back to playing.
Two of our cats love to toss and tumble every night. If you didn't know, you might think they were fighting. But they are best of friends and love to play like that.
I suppose this is the bottom line (quite literally): if you kick your cat, smell her butt!
No, seriously, you don't need to do that. Cats and dogs have an amazing talent for reading human emotions. So just reassure her that you didn't mean to do it. A little head scratch, pet her, and she will get the message.
What I meant is that it may be better to just continue walking after having stepped on them as if nothing happened, rather than making the event special.
I have more experience with children than with cats so this may be the reason (when my children fell and hurt themselves (in the "usual way"), they would look around to check how parents react. If we did as if nothing happened or just casually acknowledged the accident, they would usually go ahead with what they were doing. Running to them with "poor baby!" was the worst thing to do (in our case at least))
Dogs are like this, too. This is how a lot of owners end up reinforcing fear and fear-related aggression: cooing and fawning when their dog is shaking with fear, growling, or barking.
I've had dogs who are smaller than most cats. When I step on a paw, I do apologize and I do check on the critter, but I try to keep it low-drama so as not to feed into all that.
I just pick them up and gently squeeze each paw with gradually increasing firmness, while I watch to gauge the reactions. This lets me know whether he's actually hurt or the yelping was more anticipatory (like a 'watch out!') and if the former, which paw it was and a little bit about how bad it is. Then I give them a quick and cheerful apology and I pet them or throw a toy to chase or something like that.
If you want I can try to find some more authoritative resources on this, but basically your intuitions and the analogy from your kids are right on afaik.
At any rate, we humans have been “apologizing” to our pets like this forever. It’s almost instinctual to us. So I don’t think it’s a confusing experience for pets. It would probably more confusing for your pet if you were to suddenly stop this behavior.
This might have the side effect that they care less to avoid the situation next time (sometimes it's totally their fault, behind an opaque door how am I supposed to know they're sitting there? Of course it can move at some point), though the toilet door they seem to have been burned by often enough that they start running when the toilet flushes regardless of whether the door was cracked and we could each see each other's eyes so they know I know they're there ^^'
What experiments did you do to figure that out difference?
I love the dogs and cats that I have the privilege of living with. So no, I'm not going to do that.
Update: sorry I took some offense at your comment. Basically, I don't think this is a matter of science. Our dogs and cats are living, emotional creatures.
As their human, it is my intuition and interaction with them that best teaches me how to provide them with a loving and happy home.
Not sure why you would need to harm to test if they could understand intent.
Assumption is not science.
Superficial casuistry isn't science either.
If by that you mean that nobody should be experimenting by doing intentional harm to any animal which we can reasonably suspect to be able to experience pain then I agree. If you mean that emotions are beyond science to comprehend, then I'm curious why you think that is?
If I were to try to answer, TheOtherHobbes came closest to my feelings about it and explained better than I could:
How many dogs and cats have you personally lived with?
Have you ever hurt them, intentionally or by mistake?
Did their response change based on whether you reassured them that it was an accident, or making it clear you really meant to hurt them?
And honestly, I have to say I am a bit offended by being accused of anthropomophism.
I am not attributing "human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities" like the dogs and cats I've lived with.
I am doing my best to understand their dog and cat emotions. They are not human emotions, they are dog and cat emotions. You can't deny that they are emotional creatures, and it is my job as their caregiver and protector to understand them and meet them where they are.
What you’re saying is clearly correct. The OP’s post supports this. I was simply telling you why studies like these are necessary: because things that can seem very real can be a case of cognitive bias. A scientist’s job is to gather evidence to reveal whether what we perceive is real or illusion.
No matter how much data you collect, when you're assessing behaviour there's always a subjective interpretation of how behaviours differ and what they mean in context.
Experiments like these simply disguise and hide the subjectivity.
Questions of subjective experience are absolutely unprovable scientifically.
You can collect correlations between stimuli and responses, but when you're done you have a table of correlations between stimuli and responses - and that's all.
In practice we assume that our own states correlate with behaviours, and this also applies to other humans in a straightforward way. (It often doesn't, but it's a nice thing to believe.) From there it's an easy step to making the same mapping for certain animals, albeit with more of a stretch.
But this is all unprovable, even as a hypothesis. All you can say objectively is that stimuli either match or don't match expected behaviours.
That's all that's ever on the table.
That's not the topic we're discussing but this isn't meaningfully different from the "are we in a simulation" question.
This particular question is about animals understanding the difference accidents and not, which is a super interesting question because they can't communicate. This is something you can construct experiments around and observe different behaviors.
For data you need to actually measure a response in a controlled environment. Making sure you record both the interesting, and non-interesting, responses so you can compare them.
Humans have a very strong natural tendency to only remember and evaluate interesting responses. Causing us to vastly overestimate the frequency of interesting outcomes. That paired with our brains strong desire to pattern match, means we’re terrible at making accurate observations on a day-to-day basis.
Hence scientists do experiments like this to discover what aspects of our intuition are accurate, and what parts are inaccurate.