Your Cat Can Recognize Your Voice – And Reacts Accordingly
The animals that we interact with most in the world – except perhaps, microorganisms and insects – are the companion animals that share our homes. While a great deal of study has been done on the social ability and interactions of dogs and humans, some researchers suspect that this is because a shorter history of domestication and different conditions have led to a different kind of human-animal relationship. Still, despite their perceived aloofness or solitary nature, the social ability – and sociability – of cats is a fascinating topic of study. We know from studying other domesticated species that many of them can “[differentiate] between conspecifics by using individual differences in vocalizations.” Dogs and horses have been shown to be able to tell familiar voices from strangers and some progress has been made in seeing if cats can do the same.
The purpose of this study was meant to extend research on cat vocal recognition. We know that cats can distinguish familiar humans from unfamiliar ones, but this study wanted to see if “this distinction can be made using vocal cues.” The researchers studied cats in their adoptive homes, and used a “habituation-dishabituation” method that did not significantly change the day to day life of the cats, including no food deprivation. They presented three strangers’ voices and familiar voices to the cats, and of the sample group, 75% of the cats showed a “decreased response magnitudes to the voices of strangers.” They also noted that in this study, the cats “did not show rehabituation from owner to stranger 4, as has been shown in previous research employing the habituation–dishabituation paradigm.” The researchers say that it remains unclear what features of human voices act as the cue(s) for helping cats distinguish one from another, and that peoples’ idiosyncratic ways of calling their cats may have an effect here.
For companion animal advocates, the study shows that having familiar people present can change cats’ behavior, which has many applications for both sheltering and home care. While some of this data may be intuitively felt by people who live with cat companions, verifying it scientifically can add weight to these intuitions and help in policy making.