Can Cats Understand Humans and Our Language? What Science Says
As loving pet owners, we find it all too easy to anthropomorphize our pets. We often assign human emotions to their facial expressions and body language or talk to them as if they understand what we’re saying. Dogs have been proven to understand some degree of human communication, and anyone who’s owned an intelligent canine can attest to this. But what about cats? Can they understand any of our language?
According to new studies, cats might be able to pick out particular words their owner says, though only in very specific circumstances. However, felines zone out most of what you say as they only recognize certain words. Even the words they recognize don’t have the same meaning to them that they do to us.
Can Cats Recognize Their Owners’ Voices?
Cats have been cohabitating with people for about 10,000 years. In that time, it would make sense that they’ve learned to communicate with us to some degree. According to a 2013 study1, cats can recognize their owners’ voices, though they often choose to ignore them.
Anyone who’s owned a cat is unlikely to be surprised at this. The study found that cats often would not respond to their owners’ voices by communicating in response. However, they could definitely pick their owners’ voices out of a mix of random voices, indicating the recognition by orienting responses, such as ear and head movement.
Do Cats Respond to Their Name?
Another study2 conducted in 2019 found that cats can recognize the sound of their name and differentiate it from the sound of other words. However, it also showed that cats are unlikely to respond to their name, even though they recognize it.
Do Cats Know Their Name?
Here’s where things get a bit strange. We know cats by their names, and we know that cats can recognize the sound of their name. But cats don’t recognize their name as their name. Instead, they recognize it as a sound that generally means something else will happen afterward.
When a cat hears their name, they’re usually about to get food, a treat, or go on a trip. They learn to recognize the sound of their name and associate it with something happening, but they don’t understand that the name is a label for them.
Habituation
When cats learn that certain noises and sounds they hear regularly do not have a consequence that benefits or harms them, they get used to ignoring them, which is known as habituation. However, cats know that certain sounds have consequences for them and will impact them in some way, so cats respond to their names.
They’ve learned that something is about to happen after they hear a particular word, in this case, their name. All other words mean very little to a feline, so they essentially zone out everything else you’re saying since it won’t directly affect them.
Do Cats Understand Human Language?
Although cats may recognize the sound of their name and their owners’ voices, they don’t understand human language. There is no scientific evidence that anything you say to your cat registers as meaningful to them unless you pair a word with a consequence. Then, the word signals the consequence, which will have a meaning to the cat.
In this way, a cat can learn more than one word. They learn to respond to the sound of the word and consequence in a similar way they learn to respond to the sound of a fridge or can of food opening. Again, they only respond to their name because it generally means something is about to happen that will directly impact them. Since other words rarely result in a direct impact on your cat, they simply ignore the rest.
Conclusion
Ultimately, cats don’t understand anything that you say. However, cats can recognize the sound of their owners’ voices and pick them out among the sound of strangers’ voices. Furthermore, cats can recognize their own names, even if their name is said by someone other than their owner.
However, it’s not because they understand that their name is a label for them. Instead, they realize that when they hear that particular word, something is about to happen that will directly impact them in some way.
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Featured Image Credit: Africa Studio, Shutterstock
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Christian started writing for a local newspaper as a teenager, and he's been involved in the publishing industry for most of his adult life. Combining his love of writing with a passion for animals, he is currently the Director of Editorial at Pangolia and the Editor-in-Chief at Catster.
Christian lives in the Philippines with his wife, son, and four rescue cats: Trixie, Chloe, Sparky, and Chopper.
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