STUDY SHOWS CATS ARE AWARE WHEN YOU TALK IN YOUR CAT VOICE

Cats are often misunderstood, but recent research is showing that they actually develop stronger relationships with people than previously believed. According to a recent study from the Laboratory of Compared Ethology and Cognition at Paris Nanterre University, owners typically raise their voices when speaking to their cats. Furthermore, they discovered that cats can distinguish between the "cat voice" of their owner and that of an absolute stranger.

There is significantly less scientific data regarding the interactions between cats and their humans than there is for dogs. However, this study confirms what cat owners already know: their cats do listen to them. 16 cat subjects and their owners participated in several experiments conducted by author Charlotte de Mouzon and her team. In one case, the researchers pre-recorded the voices of a female stranger and the cat's owners, who all referred to each cat by name. To find out how the cat responded, they then played these voices in their house. When their human voice was heard, ten of the sixteen cats showed physical signs such as pupil dilation and ear movement.

The purpose of another scenario was to see if cats could identify the "cat voices" of their owners. Thus, the owners' conversations with another human and a brief clip of the owner speaking to their feline companion were captured by the researchers. These conversations, along with another recording of a stranger repeating the same pattern, were played for the cat subjects. Once more, most of the cats seemed to become alert when they heard their owners adopt their "cat voices."