"See you later!", or "How are you?": These statements sound a little different when someone says them to their cat or to a fellow human being. Cats apparently have a fine perception of these differences, the results of an experimental study suggest. As far as their owners are concerned, the animals can thus distinguish language addressed to them from utterances addressed to humans. This is reflected in conspicuous behavior patterns. It's another clue to the subtle ways in which cats adjust to their human caregivers, the researchers say.
With their winning charm, they have crept into human society: millions of house tigers populate households worldwide today - the cat is the most popular pet far ahead of the dog. Despite this great importance, the cat-human relationship has been less well researched than that of the dog. This is because cats, by their proverbial stubbornness, tend to be elusive to science. In addition, these rather solitary creatures, in contrast to the pack animal dog, show a more subtle interaction behavior with humans. However, many cat owners perceive the relationship with their animal as very complex and personal. Some studies can already scientifically substantiate these feelings.
The cat-human relationship in focus
The current study focused on the importance of the vocal communication that people establish with their cats. Basically, it is known that speech addressed to pets differs in tone from the usual way of speaking - it is similar to the way of speaking addressed to children. With dogs, it has already been shown that this form, also known as caregiver language, can have a meaning for the animal: the four-legged friends recognize the tone of voice and react to it with special attention. But does that also apply to the more “hard-to-impress” cats? The scientists led by Charlotte de Mouzon from the University of Paris Nanterre have now investigated this question in an experimental study.
The animal subjects were 16 average indoor cats living together with their owners in one household. For the study, owners' voices were recorded when they interacted with their animals, such as playing with them or greeting them. From this, the researchers created sound clips that included individual sentences and phrases that came from the language addressed to cats. For example, "How are you? "Do you want something to eat?" or "See you later". For comparison purposes, the researchers then also created sound clips with the same statements when the respective cat owner had addressed them to a human.
First, the scientists fundamentally documented that certain reactions reflect the fact that the cats recognized their respective caregivers based on their voice. The animals stood under camera observation in their familiar domestic environment while a stranger called their name over a loudspeaker. They then prick up their ears, but when the strange call was repeated, their attention waned significantly. However, when the owner's voice suddenly came out of the loudspeaker, the animal was clearly activated: in the majority of the cats, searching behavior, ear and eye reactions, tail wagging and other physical signs reflected that they had recognized their caregivers .
"It has to do with me"
Then it was about recognizing the addressing of speech. First, the researchers played the human-oriented sound clips from their owners to the test animals and recorded the behavior of the animals by analyzing the video recordings. The audio impressions then switched to the recordings aimed at the cats. As the team reports, significant behavioral changes in the animals became apparent during the transition: When they heard the way their caregiver typically talks to humans, they showed little increased activity patterns. However, when "cat talk" was heard, the reactions reflected a perception of the special meaning, the scientists report.
As emerged from the third part of the experiment, this reaction was apparently not generally based on a human cat-speaking tone: because when the animals heard the speech of a stranger addressed to a cat, they reacted no differently than when he spoke addressed to a human, the researchers found. The bottom line is that the study results suggest: "Cats can apparently distinguish language that is specifically directed at them from a form that is directed at humans when the sentences are spoken by their owners," the scientists summarize.
However, they point out that the results so far are based on a small sample. According to them, they should now confirm and expand more extensive studies. At least it's showing again that it's possible to shed light on the subtle aspects of the amazing cat-human relationship.
Source: Springer, technical article: Animal Cognition, doi: 10.1007/s10071-022-01674-w