This study shows evidence of a domestic cat (Felis catus) being able to successfully learn to reproduce human-demonstrated actions based on the Do as I Do paradigm. The subject was trained to reproduce a small set of familiar actions on command “Do it!” before the study began. To test feature–contingent behavioural similarity and control for stimulus enhancement, our test consisted of a modified version of the two-action procedure, combined with the Do as I Do paradigm. Instead of showing two different actions on an object to different subjects, we applied a within-subject design and showed the two actions to the same subject in separate trials. We show evidence that a well-socialized companion cat was able to reproduce actions demonstrated by a human model by reproducing two different actions that were demonstrated on the same object. Our experiment provides the first evidence that the Do as I Do paradigm can be applied to cats, suggesting that the ability to recognize behavioural similarity may fall within the range of the socio-cognitive skills of this species. The ability of reproducing the actions of a heterospecific human model in well-socialized cats may pave the way for future studies addressing cats’ imitative skills.

这项研究显示了家猫（Felis catus）能够成功地基于“做我做”范例来重现人类演示的动作。该对象受过训练，可以按照命令“ Do it！”重现一小组熟悉的动作。在研究开始之前。为了测试特征–偶然的行为相似性和对刺激增强的控制，我们的测试包括双向操作程序的修改版本以及“按需做”范例。我们没有在对象上向不同的对象显示两个不同的动作，而是应用了主题内设计，并在单独的试验中向同一对象显示了这两个动作。我们显示出证据表明，社交良好的伴侣猫能够通过复制在同一对象上显示的两个不同动作来复制人类模型显示的动作。我们的实验提供了第一个证据，表明“照做即做”范例可以应用于猫，这表明识别行为相似性的能力可能属于该物种的社会认知能力范围。在社会化程度高的猫中重现异源人类模型行为的能力可能为今后研究猫的模仿技能铺平道路。