We will do our best to keep you updated about our project activities, including our studies, data collection of cat vocalisations and cat –directed speech, perception tests (how do cats perceive different speaking styles in human speech?, how do human listeners judge different melodies in cat vocalisations?), analyses, reports from project meetings, talks, conferences, etc.
Susanne gave a Zoom talk about the project at The TÜling talk series at the University of Tartu, Estonia.
The project members gratefully acknowledge the support from The Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation and thanks everyone (cats as well as humans) who have made this project possible.
Susanne was interviewed in the Swedish TV4 show Malou Efter Tio about her research on cat–human communication and the project.
Susanne was interviewed in the Swedish Newspaper Skånska Dagbladet about the project and her research on cat–human communication.
Susanne was interviewed in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.
Susanne was interviewed on the national Swedish TV channel TV4.
Susanne was interviewed on Swedish local radio P4 Malmöhus and aslo in P4 Extra.
The IG Nobel Prize Ceremony was an online event. Click below to watch the ceremony (The biology Prize is 11.50-16.40).
The team was awarded the 2021 IG Nobel Prize in biology "for analyzing variations in purring, chirping, chattering, trilling, tweedling, murmuring, meowing, moaning, squeaking, hissing, yowling, howling, growling, and other modes of cat–human communication".
INTERCOM is a new Advanced Study Group at the Pufendorf Institute on Interspecific Communication. The group has members from numerous disciplines and will study a number of research questions related to interspecific communication.
Swedish National Television borrowed some cat sounds from the project data for a cat sound quiz
Susanne was interviewed in Swedish National Television about the project.
In collaboration with Lund University and the Humanities Lab we have put together a small quiz with sounds by cats in positive or negative situations. Can you tell which is which?
Susanne and Joost were interviewed about the project in this video produced by Victoria Johansson and Peter Roslund at Lund University Humanities Lab.
Susanne was interviewed about the project and her book at the Lund University digital national book fair.
For some time now we have been analysing meow intonation in different contexts and mental states using a number of different methods. The picture shows an example of how meows produced in positive mental states seem to have a more positive slope (i.e. rising contour) than meows produced in negative mental states (Thanks to Andrey Anikin for helping with R scripts).
Susanne was interviewed about cat communication in the German newspaper TZ.
Susanne was interviewed about the phonetics of the human cat-direted sound "Pspspsps".
Article about the Meowsic project and Susanne's book The secret Language of Cats on the Brazilian website Anda.
Susanne was interviewed in the German Radio Program Grünstreifen, Deutschlandfunk Nova about the project and the phonetics of cat sounds.
Susanne and Joost were interviewed in the Swedish national radio (SR P1) program "Vetandets Värld" (in Swedish) about our project.
Susanne was interviewed in the German magazine Zeit Wissen (Nr6 2019) about our project.
VIdeos of all the presentations given at VIHAR 2019 are now available online.
The proceedings of VIHAR 2019 are now available for download.
Joost and Susanne presented our results from our Study 1 at the 2nd International Workshop on Vocal Interactivity in-and-between Humans, Animals and Robots (VIHAR), 29-30 August 2019, in London, UK.
We presented two Meowsic-related studies at the Swedish National Phonetics conference in Stockholm June 10-12, 2019.
After careful analysis of meow vocalisations produced by 40 cats we have now been able to compare melody contours representing average values for the different contexts and mental states by visual inspection of the contours.
We are now running acoustic analysis on our collected data — mainly the duration (length) fundamental frequency (pitch and melody) — in order to learn more about the variation between different types of meowing (by cats in different mental states and in different behavioural contexts).
Susanne's own translation into Swedish of her book The Secret Language of Cats is now available.
Susanne Schötz was interviewed about the project and her book in TV4's Nyhetsmorgon.
Susanne Schötz was interviewed about the project in Dagens Nyheter—one of Sweden's leading newspapers.
Susanne Schötz's book about cat sounds and a chapter about the Meowsic project now available in English.
We now have segmented, categorised and also labelled the context and mental state of the cat for over 1000 cat vocalisations. The beautiful Maine Coone Ani in the picture has contributed with numerous trills and growls. (Photo taken from video sent to us by Ani's owner Joakim Gustafson)
Susanne Schötz was interviewed (via Skype) about our project in the Swedish news show Aftonbladet morgon.
Robert Eklund was interviewed about our project in the Swedish national television (Kunskapskanalen) show Språknyheterna (The Language News) .
Several interviews and articles were published about the project in Swedish media, including Forskning.se, Land, and Året runt.
Robert Eklund led a seminar about our project at Linköping University.
Susanne Schötz was interviewed in the German TV show Kölner Sommertreff (WDR).
Robert Eklund continues to record vocalisations from cats in Linköping and Stockholm. We now have data from 70 (!) cats. One of them is Missy, the beautiful cat in the picture.
Several interviews and articles about our project were published in Swedish newspapers and magazines.
Susanne Schötz was invited to "Stöckl", an Austrian (ORF) TV talkshow, broadcasted 26 July 2018.
In a radio interview (Swedish SR P4 Östergötland) Robert Eklund gave an update on the project and our current data collection. The beautiful cat in the picture is called Zombie.
Now we are finally beginning to analyse our material of cat sounds. The picture shows one of the first F0 analyses of meows in different contexts, based on 9 cats. Stay tuned for more analyses.
Susanne gave several interviews and talks about the project in Munich and Wiesbaden (in Germany).
Susanne was interviewed in German (SWR2 Matinee) and Swedish (SR Sisuradio – a Finish-speaking program) radio about the project.
Robert and Susanne recorded ten cats in the Stockholm area and Robert is continuing to collect data in the Stockholm and Linköping areas. Thank you Göran (the beautiful red cat in the picture) and all other cats and owners for your help!
Susanne Schötz was interviewed about the project on the Swiss television show Aeschbacher, which was broadcasted on January 7, 2018.
We are contuinuing to collect data from Scanian cats. The handsome Birman cat Simba in the picture is deaf, but we were able to record some nice vocalisations anyway.
Susanne Schötz was interviewed about our projects by Swedish Radio and TV (e.g. Radio P4 Väst, SR Ekot, TV 4, and Radio P4).
Susanne Schötz was interviewed about the project, and some video examples from our project website were used in the online article to illustrate different cat vocalisation types.
Susanne Schötz gave a lecture at the Lund University Jubilee Course about our project and about the different cat sound categories that we are using in our research (in Swedish).
We are currently collecting data from cats in Scania in the south of Sweden. The cats often wear small microphones attached to their collars, while their owners wear a videocamera on their heads (a GoPro). In this video you can see the cat Moses greeting his owner with meows, and then he gets his dinner.
Our data collection has improved since we started to use new (small and utralight) bluetooth microphones which attach nicely to a cat collar.
Susanne Schötz talked about our project at the Lund University 350th anniversary party in Lundagård in Lund.
Susanne Schötz gave a talk about our project at VIHAR 2017 satellite workshop in Skövde.
We got a chance to talk to one of our consultants – Prof. Em. John Ohala – about our project at the Interspeech conference in Stockholm
In October we continued to test and evaluate different types of recording equipment and collected a large number of nice meows.
Susanne Schötz gave popular scientific talks about the project and related research at the Welcome Day for New Employees at Lund University 12 (in Swedish) and 26 (in English) October 2016.
Robert Eklund presented our project at an invited talk at the University of California at Berkeley, Department of Linguistics 13 September 2016, and also gave popular science talks at Linköping University in September 2016.
Speech and Language Pathology (SLP) student Irma Hammar, who has been working in our project during the summer, reported her project results at the Medicine Faculty at Lund University. Irma has collected information on where and how cats are used in animal assisted thearpy (AAT) within the field of SLP in Sweden and other countries.
In August and September 2016 we were running Pilot test with our new miniature cameras and our other equipment to find out which setups are best suited for collecting cat vocalisation data. Click on the image above to check out the pilot video!
The project is still getting a lot of media attention. We have made several radio and TV interviews in Sweden and other countries.
In February, March and Aprtil 2016 articles about our project were published in Sweden, UK, USA, Switzerland, Spain, Chile, Australia and many other countries. We have also given several radio and TV interviews that have been broadcasted in Sweden and other countries.
In February 2016 we sneak previewed and tested some of the recording equipment and techniques we are planning to use in the project.
On January 28, 2016 we held our very first project meeting in Lund to begin planning our project.
On January 19, 2016 we celebrated our project grant in the Humanities Lab at Lund University with "project cake".
This video was shot in August 2016 using multiple cameras, including miniature cameras attached to the cats' collars.