A A study published in the journal Scientific Reports has shown that domestic cats are able to differentiate their own names from other words. Although dogs’ ability to understand human signals is well known, cats’ ability to communicate with people and recognize specific words has not been fully explored until now. The researchers used a habituation-dishabituation method to analyze the felines’ response to various human words, such as their own names, general nouns, and the names of other cats that cohabit the same household.
The experiment was carried out with domestic cats from ordinary homes and cats from a “cat cafe”, an establishment where visitors interact with felines. The results were surprising: cats living in traditional homes demonstrated a clear ability to recognize their own nameseven when they were spoken by unknown people. These cats showed a notable “rebound” reaction upon hearing their name, having previously habituated to the repetition of other words. This behavior indicated that felines not only recognize their names by familiarity, but are also sensitive to the phonetic characteristics of the words.
This discovery suggests that cats are not only attuned to sounds that are familiar to thembut rather they have the ability to discriminate words based on phonemic differences, which makes them a more communicative species than previously thought. However, the cats in the cat cafes, despite being exposed to a greater variety of names, were unable to discriminate their own names from those of other cats. This indicates that The environment they live in could influence their ability to recognize and differentiate human words.
The study also highlights that, although cats are not as trained as dogs to respond to human commands or signals, they have a considerable sensitivity to the human voice. Felines proved to be able to recognize their owner’s voice and respond to certain vocal stimuli intuitively. This reinforces the idea that cats have developed, throughout their domestication process, a communication system with humans that goes beyond simple meows.
Despite their more independent behavior, cats show a surprising ability to understand human interactions, even recognizing keywords such as their own names. This study changes the perception of cats as less communicative animals, showing that, although more subtly, they also communicate with people and respond to vocal stimuli in a significant way.
This advance opens new doors for research into communication between humans and cats, a relationship that, despite being more recent than that of dogs, continues to prove to be deep and full of nuances.
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