If you’ve ever got a cat ignore their own name (and who haven’t?), You can be skeptical that they would also bother to teach each other’s names. But a number of cat -focused studies conducted by a Japanese research team found that they actually know their own names, the names of other household treasures and even the names of their human family members.
Join us as we explore this fascinating research!
Do cats recognize their own names?
This remains a warm debated topic in the cat world, though most experts agree that cats know their names. Although the relationship between dogs and humans has been examined extensively, the cat’s ability to communicate with humans remains more of a mystery. Fortunately, a few tireless researchers have begun to dive into this fascinating area.
A 2013 study found that cats can recognize their owners based solely on hearing their voice. The study played the voices of cat owners and complete strangers who called their names and recorded their answers using cameras. Cats responded with “orientation behavior” (ear and head movement) rather than “communicative behavior” (tail movement and meowing), and 15 out of 20 cats responded less to the alien voices.
An interesting side finding of this study is that cats respond to their names called, even when it is a foreign voice. This suggests that cats actually know their names, though they come running, is another story completely.
In 2019, the same researchers specifically studied whether cats know their names. They presented household cats and cats that lived in a café with lists of general nouns, the names of other cats and their own names. All cats separate their names from the general nouns, and household cats also separate their own names from the names of other cats in their homes. As in the previous study, the cats were able to recognize their names even when spoken by a stranger, suggesting that they really recognize the sound of their name, not just the tone or other contextual clues.
Do cats also know each other’s names?
This brings us to the newer study. Knowing their own names is one thing, but can cats really keep track of each other’s names too?
The answer is, according to a 2022 study of the same cat -focused research team yes! The study showed cats a number of pictures of well -known cats and humans, either paired with the right name or a wrong name. The researchers found that household treasures spent further looking at the screen as the wrong name was paired with it. This is called “expected violation effect”, a phenomenon in which the unexpected (as a wrong name) draws more attention than the expected (as the right name).
Interestingly, this study also compared household cats with café cats. In this case did the café cats not Answer differently to being shown other cats paired with a wrong name, suggesting that teaching each other’s names is specifically for cats that live as pets. Household cats also looked on screen longer as their human family members were shown with the wrong name, which suggested that they also know the names of specific people.
Try it on your own cat
As research continues to develop, we can look forward to learning more about our lovable, complex cat friends. Meanwhile, why not try your own version of this experiment on your household matches? Tell us how it goes in the comments!
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