When you call your cats by their name, do they respond, or just simply yawn and go back to sleep? When they don’t come to you when you call them, have you ever become suspicious that your cats have honed the art of selective hearing? This burning question may have inspired a group of curious researchers to launch a more thorough investigation.
According to The Independent newspaper, a study was recently made by a group of scientists at the University of Tokyo. Researchers involved in the study learned that while cats do recognize our voices, they will only respond to us when they are darned-well ready to do so.
The study was made over a period of 8 months, and was designed to help the scientists learn more about how and when felines respond. Twenty pet cats were evaluated in their homes by the researchers. During the study, the scientists played five recordings for each of the kitties; but only when their guardians were not within sight. The first three recordings had strangers calling the cats by name. The fourth recording was made by the guardian calling the cat and the fifth was made by a different stranger.
The cats’ responses to each of the calls were analyzed by the researchers by observing and measuring their ear, head, tail and paw movements as well as their vocalizations, and pupil dilation. All the cats moved their heads and ears upon hearing their names called to determine from where the sound originated, which demonstrated orientation behavior.
More than half of the cats responded identically to the sound of any voice. Thirty percent moved their ears and 10 percent meowed or moved their tails. However, all the cats showed a greater response upon hearing their guardian’s voice than they did when hearing the voice of a stranger. Interestingly, none of the cats moved in response to any of the voices calling them.
So is it possible that cats didn’t evolve to obey humans? Summing up their findings, the study authors said,
“These results indicate that cats do not actively respond with communicative behavior to owners who are calling them from out of sight, even though they can distinguish their owners’ voices. This cat-owner relationship is in contrast to that with dogs.”
They theorized that the difference in the lack of the cats’ responses was due to the different ways cats and dogs were domesticated. For thousands of years dogs have been bred and trained by humans, whereas cats basically domesticated themselves when they made themselves invaluable to humans as magnificent rodent hunters. According to the researchers,
“Historically speaking, cats, unlike dogs, have not been domesticated to obey humans’ orders. Rather, they seem to take the initiative in human-cat interaction.”
While this results of this study may be fascinating to some people, if this writer’s cats have a justified reason to respond to my voice, whether they can see me or not; they come charging like a herd of elephants, especially when they catch a whiff of a tasty tidbit that I might be offering them.
Cats always have a good reason for any of their behaviors. Don’t you think that it’s up to us to understand them rather than expect them to do our bidding? Tell us your opinion in a comment.
Jo
Photo credit Flickr User Niklas
Cats respond if they have a reason to do so. All of our cats come to their name. They always get praised and loved. Sometimes they get a treat. They also are trained to come and find me if the smoke detector goes off. That way if there is ever a true emergency I can get them in hand and get them out of the house. The cats all know their own names and when One cat gets in trouble they know that it is not them unless they hear their name. This is an interesting article. Thanks for sharing.
Elizabeth!
LOL,
But now that most canned cat foods have pop-off tops, it makes the electric can-opener obsolete.. Just think kittens today will no longer have that exciting “call” to dinner.
The sound of food being prepared is the best communicator. Perhaps in the study people should have communicated with a similar sound, a sound that mimics the sound of dinner being prepared. Then they will respond actively.
True. I’ve never heard my feral Yellow Cat meow within hearing range for me. But I see her “talking” to her companion, Shadow. Also, both their body language is just that…a whole language. I think I understand it. At least some of it.
Well, hrrrumph. I will only say that many times when I call my cats, they go against their self-interest to ignore me, since I am announcing din din. However, generally they remain in close proximity and no call is needed when the sound of One Can Opening is purrceived by pointy little ears.
I recall that research. I forget the source. Your example sort of disproves it. I think you’ll find that the meow is not universally used for cat to human communication but is generally used for that purpose.