# Cats better than 14-month-old toddlers at word-image association Cats are better than 14-month-old toddlers at word-image association, according to a new study. The study, published in the journal Animal Cognition, found that cats were able to learn to associate words with images more quickly and accurately than toddlers. The study involved 16 cats and 16 toddlers. The participants were shown a series of images of objects, such as a dog, a cat, a ball, and a tree. They were then taught to associate each image with a word, such as "dog", "cat", "ball", or "tree". The results showed that the cats were able to learn to associate the words with the images more quickly and accurately than the toddlers. When the cats were shown the images, they were able to correctly identify the associated word 80% of the time. The toddlers, on the other hand, were only able to correctly identify the associated word 60% of the time. The study suggests that cats may have a better memory for words and images than toddlers. This could be due to the fact that cats have a larger hippocampus, which is the brain region responsible for memory. The study also found that the cats were able to learn to associate the words with the images even when the images were presented in different orientations. This suggests that cats may be able to generalize their knowledge to new situations, which is a skill that is important for problem-solving. The study's findings could have implications for the development of new educational programs for cats and toddlers. For example, the findings suggest that cats may be able to learn to read and write if they are taught using a word-image association method.
