To my knowledge that’s a lot of how domestication winds up being.
What I found interesting was a study when they tried to domesticate silver foxes for the fur industry (because basically they didn’t take to being raised in fur farms well). So basically they were selectively bread for not being aggressive to humans.
Which worked, but the drawbacks were effectively… all of their childlike traits remained. IE their ears stayed floppy, and they stopped growing the silver coat that was the whole reason the fur industry wanted them.
Basically I think it could be said that effectively… most domestication traits are more or less, keeping childlike mentality for life in animals.
MeaanBeaan@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yes, but the question is if they model their meows to sound like human infants. We know they changed their behavior to meow when wanting attention from us. But I’d be willing to bet they didn’t model their meows to sound like that. They just happen to sound like that because they’re small animals with high pitch voices.
TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 1 day ago
There’s a good chance that it’s just a mammalian trait that predates modern humans or house cats. Pretty much all mammals require some extra protection and care when they are young and vulnerable, so it being common among other mammals isn’t exactly surprising.
Revan343@lemmy.ca 20 hours ago
“They modelled their meows to sound like human infants” implies active intent, but (I’m sure you know) that’s not how evolution actually works. If the theory is correct, their meows would naturally evolve to sound more like babies because those are the cats that we would be more likely to take care of, whereas cats with meows that sounded less like our babies would be less likely to be taken care of, and thus less likely to reproduce.
Klear@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
Or: people who didn’t respond to these meows didn’t keep their cats and rats ate all their grain so people more responsive to the meows reproduced more…