FARI · Public field archive Feline Autonomy Research Institute
Issue 14 · Vol. 5 Established 2021 Updated 30 March 2026 Editor: M. Voronova
Working glossary

How the desk uses its own words.

A short glossary so readers can hold the desk to its own definitions. When an entry stops fitting a definition, we update the entry; when a definition stops fitting the entries, we update the definition. Both happen.

Russian version: эта страница на русском
Terms in regular use

Desk occupation

Sustained presence on or near input devices during a work or study period. We care less about the keyboard than about the period.

Routine association

Behavior linked to a repeated household sequence: alarms, meals, calls, shutdowns. Most cases reduce to routine association once a second observation comes in.

Device adjacency

Animal position within roughly one body length of a powered device, cable, screen, speaker, or warm network appliance. Useful only when paired with timing.

Response shaping

Human behavior that changes after repeated animal interruption, often without a conscious rule being set. Owners rearrange chairs, mute calls earlier, or stop leaving paper on the printer tray.

Observer-bias note

A flag used when the report may reflect owner expectation more than repeated behavior. We add the flag, we do not delete the entry.

Context threshold

The minimum amount of detail required before a report can enter the public log. Roughly: room, time, devices, sequence, and what changed afterward.

Words we try to avoid

The archive prefers description over interpretation. A few habits we have given up:

“The cat wanted…”Replace with a description of what the cat did and where.
“Curiosity”Almost always means “the animal approached an object,” which is more useful as a sentence.
“Protest”Implies intent we cannot verify. The desk does not use it.
“Surveillance”Reserved for cases that genuinely involve recording other people. The archive avoids those cases entirely.
How the glossary changes. Definitions move when the entries push them. When we adjust a term, the change appears on this page with a dated note — we do not silently retag earlier reports.