Cross-modal transfer of oddity concept learning from visual to olfactory stimuli in a domestic cat (Felis catus)

Abstract

The present study tested a domestic cat with novel odor stimuli sets (IIJ, JJI in odor test 1 and KKL & LLK in odor test 2) inserted after every four oddity training tasks, consisting of object stimuli. The findings showed that the cat demonstrated significantly above the chance transfer performance (90% for novel odor stimulus I and 100% for J in test 1; 95% for L and 100% for K in test 2) from object to odor modality, apparently indicated that the cat might have adopted a relational understanding to learn the oddity tasks. Nevertheless, the possibility of stimulus generalization, the sense of perceptual oddity or effect of oddity preference could not be excluded.