A cat that has established itself as a companion animal along with dogs.However, the ability of cats to communicate with humans has not been studied much as compared to dogs.

　In this research group, cats kept by humans change their "own name" from humans to "other nouns" (the length and accent are aligned with "your name") and "names of cats living together". Was examined using the "acclimation / deacclimation method".The acclimation / deacclimation method is that when the same or the same category of stimulus is repeatedly presented to the target individual, the response to the stimulus gradually decreases (acclimation), but when a novel stimulus is presented, the response recovers (deacclimation). It is a method to check whether the stimulus can be distinguished by using this.

　First, I asked the cat four consecutive "general nouns" or "names of cats living together" that were all different.Then, "habituation" occurred, and the cat's reaction to the voice became smaller (habituation).Then, when I asked him "my name" as the fifth stimulus, the reaction of the cat, which had become smaller due to habituation, became statistically significantly larger (de-habituation).This is a result suggesting that cats perceive "my name" as a different stimulus from "general nouns" and "names of cohabiting cats".

　The same result was obtained with the call of both the owner and the stranger.In other words, it can be said that cats distinguish between the characteristics common to human voice.

　This study experimentally revealed that cats have the ability to distinguish human audio content, in addition to the previously known dogs, chimpanzees, dolphins and gray parrots.This result is said to contribute to the improvement of the welfare of both humans and cats.

Paper information:[Scientific Reports] Domestic cats (Felis catus) discriminate their names from other words