Study Shows Cats Recognize Your Voice And Know When You Are Talking to Them

There is a lot of information out there about dogs and one study has been done on the subject after another. It’s about time that they did a study on cats, and it is teaching us something that we should have known all along.

A group of researchers posted the study in the journal Animal Cognition and they say that cats can form bonds with their owners.

The study got started because researchers wanted to see if cats knew the difference between when owners were talking to them or talking to someone else. The results were very interesting.

We know from studies and from personal experience that dogs are able to respond to humans when they are speaking directly to them. A dog can tell the difference between human-directed speech and dog-directed speech.

To sum things up, dogs are able to recognize when you are talking to them and they respond to it. This is something that is good to know because it shows that dogs are able to form a close bond with humans.

This left scientists wondering if cats were able to do something similar. Admittedly, cats tend to be rather standoffish, so if they do respond to cat-directed speech, what’s the deal?

The researchers from the French Université Paris Nanterre were able to determine that if their human was talking, the cat would perk up their ears and pay attention. They seemed to do more than just pay attention, they would actually show interest and may even wander around the room with dilated pupils.

Something different happened, however, when a recording of a stranger’s voice was played. Suddenly, the cat lost its attention and it didn’t have the same type of reaction.

They also were able to tell that a cat could determine when a human was speaking to them rather than speaking to someone else in the room. When they spoke to the cat using the special voice that they usually use when they speak to the cat, the cat would pay attention. On the other hand, they wouldn’t pay as much attention if they were speaking to a stranger in the room.

If a stranger used the special voice, they would ignore it altogether.

This really gives cat owners hope, letting them know that the feline is interested in what is going on in their life and that they have a real shot at a close relationship. Then again, we already know that cats love us.