Zoology | The cat reacts to its owner’s speech – the animal ignores the “cat talk” of a stranger

Most people talk to their pets, and talking to pets is similar to talking to small children. Articulation is then particularly clear, sentences are shorter, there is repetition in the speech and the note of the speech is higher.

Studies have found that dogs respond to speech adapted to them, whether the speaker is the pet’s owner or a stranger. On the other hand, there is much less information about cats.

Now matter has found out doctoral researcher at the French University of Paris Nanterre Charlotte de Mouzon with colleagues.

The team found that, unlike dogs, cats seem to respond to speech only when the speaker is their owner.

According to the researchers, this may indicate that cats and their owners form close relationships with each other through their unique mutual communication.

“Cats — which until recently were considered independent and ungrateful creatures — are actually capable of forming and nurturing attachment relationships with humans,” de Mouzon and his colleagues write in the journal Animal Cognition.

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When a strange voice called a cat by name, the cats usually did not react. But when the speaker was the owner, they became alert.

De Mouzon and his colleagues studied how 16 pet cats responded to pre-recorded sounds. The audio recordings contained the speech of both cat owners and people who were strangers to the animals.

In addition to different speakers, the researchers tested how the cats reacted to a speech style adapted for pets and, on the other hand, to a speech style intended for an adult audience.

All cats were indoor cats, and their ages ranged from eight months to two years. Their owners were veterinary students from Alfort near Paris. The sounds were played to the cats in their home.

Researchers recorded and evaluated the behavior of cats when spoken to. The researchers observed, for example, the movement of the pets’ ears and tails, dilation of the pupils and possible changes in the cats’ resting state.

When a strange voice called a cat by name, the cats usually did not react. But when the speaker was the owner, they became alert. The cats turned their ears towards the speakers, increased their movement, and their pupils dilated.

According to the researchers, the change in behavior is a sign that the cats were able to distinguish their owner’s voice from foreign speech.

In another in the experimental setting, the cats were played voice recordings of their owners, while the owners spoke either in a style adapted to their pet or in an adult-like style.

The owners said the following sentences on the tape: Do you want to play? Do you want to eat? See you later! How are you?

Ten of the sixteen cats did not react when they heard their owner speak the sentences in an adult-like expression style. However, they clearly woke up when the owner talked to cats in a way adapted to cats.

When the guest said the same things, the style of speech didn’t matter.

The weakness of the study is the small sample size, 16 cats. Thus, the results may not represent the behavior of all cats. In addition, the owners of the cats were students in the field.

Last years of research have found that cats seem to be attached to their owners in the same way that dogs have long been known to be.

“Although there are fewer studies, research suggests that we may be underestimating the sociocognitive abilities of cats,” states a study published in Current Biology in 2019 US study.

More than half of the owners consider their cat a member of the family, says the University of Groningen in the Netherlands research.

More than a quarter treat their cat like a child, a survey based on responses from around 1,800 pet owners found. Only 14 percent kept their cat only as a pet.