Cats DO know their names and are just choosing to ignore you, claims study
16 August 2019, 16:11 | Updated: 16 August 2019, 16:50
A study has suggested that our feline friends are smarter than we think...
Turns out our cats are far cleverer (and far ruder) than we initially thought - as a study has claimed that they do know their names, and are just choosing to ignore us when we call for them.
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Researchers in Japan - who studied cats' behaviour in their own homes - have found that cats are able to distinguish their name from other random sounds.
They recorded sounds of nouns with a similar accent and length as the cat's name - and had both the ownder and a stranger record them and the names. The study found that most of the cats reacted in some way when their names were spoken.
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The researchers said, according the CNN: "From the results of all experiments, it thus appears that at least cats living in ordinary households can distinguish their own names from general words and names of other cats," the researchers wrote.
"This is the first experimental evidence showing cats' ability to understand human verbal utterances."
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They also conducted the experiment on cats in a cat cafe, and found that these, unlike house cats, were not easily able to distinguish their names.
