Cats understand their name, but they just sometimes choose to ignore you

We love them for who they are, but sometimes it takes a lot of patience, especially as a new study shows that our cats understand their name perfectly well, but if they show no interest, it is simply because they are ignoring us.

Perhaps we didn't even need the confirmation of science, whoever has a cat at home has learned to live with his habits that let's admit it, sometimes, they really get on our nerves.

According to a study published in Scientific Reports, researchers found that cats are able to distinguish their names from other random sounds. They can therefore understand similar sounds, even when they are uttered by a stranger. So why very often when we call them, do they not run to us? Because they pretend they don't understand, but they have the same learning ability as dogs.

The research was conducted by a Japanese team led by scientists from the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, who collaborated with colleagues from the RIKEN Center for Brain Science.

In the first phase of the study conducted by Atsuko Saito, the technique of "disaccustomation-addiction" was used, which is normally used for the analysis of animal behavior.

The researchers went to the homes of cat-owner families and asked them to pronounce four words with the same phonetics as the cat's name, which was to be pronounced as the fifth word.

All cats at the sound of the words had movements of the head, tail and ears. At the fourth word many had already disinterested, but at the fifth, that is the one with their name, 9 out of 11 cats (involved in the first phase) have reactivated.
To leave nothing to chance, the scientists then did a second test, with other cats and four other families who had more felines in the house.

They asked their owners to pronounce the names of the other felines before reaching the one of the cat interested in the search. In this case, 6 of the 24 felines they have shown a gradual disinterest name after name, reactivating themselves to the pronunciation of theirs.

In the last phase, the team carried out a test in the neko bars where you can have breakfast with the cats, to verify the reactions to the names pronounced by strangers and not by the owners.

In this case they were 3 of 9 to move his head and ears slightly as he listens to his name. According to the researchers, therefore, these data are sufficient to understand that cats understand their names.

"This is the first experimental evidence showing the ability of cats to understand human verbal expressions," say the researchers.

Now the study will continue to understand if cats are able to distinguish the name as an identifier for them or recognize only the word intended as a sound.

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