Study: Cats Understand Their Names, But Are Probably Just Ignoring You
(CNN) -- Have you ever wondered whether your cat is ignoring you because it doesn't understand its name? Several researchers from Japan did, so they tried to get to the bottom of it.
And we have bad news: According to a study published in Scientific Reports, the researchers found that cats are able to distinguish their names from other random sounds.
Which clearly means that, yes, your cat is just choosing not to respond to your calls to come hang out.
The researchers say they attempted several experiments to see how cats would react to their names, conducted in the cat's home and with their owner out of view.
The researchers chose nouns with roughly the same accent and length as the cat's name and had both the cat's owner and a stranger record them. They played the audio to the cats with 15-second intervals between each sound. The cat's name came last.
Regardless of who was speaking, most of the cats reacted in some way, moving their heads or perking up their ears when their names were spoken.