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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."

According to De Mouzon, “What we found is that cats can discriminate between speech that is specifically addressed just to them by their owner from their speech addressed to other humans. It’s further evidence showing that there is an attachment between cats and humans. And I think that’s important to keep in mind because for decades, we have been thinking that cats are very independent creatures, that they just want food and shelter, and that they don’t care about humans. The fact that they show a special reaction to a special way we talk to them means, I think, that we are something more just than a food provider in their world.” 
Article Tags: Viral Voice Cats Study

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