Study reveals the cunning of cats in dealing with humans!

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Cats have similar abilities to dogs, allowing them to interpret human speech and distinguish their names, but they ignore the human presence around them, a new Japanese study found.


The researchers sought to test the hypothesis that cats may recognize their name from among different words, in return for different rewards, such as food, playfulness and play.Researchers from the University of Tokyo conducted a series of experiments on 78 cats to see if cats can distinguish their names from other types of words people say to them.

To test the hypothesis, the researchers tested the cats by making recordings of their names with the voices of their owners, and with the voices of other people in four different words sequentially.

Cat interactions were recorded through videos for analysis to detect minor differences in the cat's response to hearing its name, such as moving the head, ears or tail, or raising the foot.

Based on these responses, the researchers found that the majority of cats can actually distinguish their names from other words, even if they are similar, regardless of whether they are in the voice of the owner or someone else's voice.

The researchers say their first experimental results clearly show that "cats can also distinguish human speech based on vocal differences."The only exception was among cats living in cafes, where their ability to recognize their names appeared to be more difficult, perhaps because of the environment in which they live, where customers are often called different names, making it difficult to distinguish their names from other words.

The research team suggests that the results of this study can be used one day to improve the quality of life of cats, by training on certain words avoid entering or dangerous places to warn or prevent them from doing specific things.

"Cats do not evolve to respond to human signals, and they will communicate with us when you want," he said. "These are the cats!"

Source: Science Alert

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