Cats Remember Each Other's Names, Japanese Study Suggests

[Warpy]

In recent years, scientists have shown that cats actually bond deeply with humans. These complex creatures can and will communicate with us, and they even track our movements when we're not around.

Even more amazingly, cats can recognize their own names (an ability we mostly associate with dogs), and now new research shows that this feline feat goes much further than we realized.

In a new study, scientists discovered that in addition to knowing their own names, cats also appear to recognize the names of other cats they're familiar with, and may also know the names of people who live in the same household.

https://www.sciencealert.com/cats-know-each-other-s-names-experiment-suggests

My old cat (now long gone) loved to watch Maru videos. She'd sit in my lap, glued to the screen, chirping at him. She was bored by everything else, including fish, although videos of big cats would hold her attention for a minute or two. Maru could keep her happy for half an hour or more. She especially loved to see him surf boxes across the floor.

So yeah, not surprised about this study, at all.

[Siwsan]

1. I am sure that Gryff understands his name. Madoc probably does, too, but chooses to ignore me

[Jerryatric]

2. There is a cat on youtube who actually talks.

She uses those pet communication buttons and she knows not only names, but she understand abstract concepts like later and before and tomorrow. I had been watching dogs do that for a while, then I found the cat, Billi, does the same thing. It's utterly fascinating. This is their channel - https://www.youtube.com/c/BilliSpeaks

[wnylib]

3. My cat definitely knows her name.

She is very quiet, rarely ever meows. But she pays attention to human words and has picked up some through context and repetition.

Sometimes I intentionally teach her a new word. Typical feline, she pays most attention to words that she cares about. So, I recently added a new word to her vocabulary. She always comes to the kitchen when I open a can of tuna. So I started saying "tuna" as I opened it. After doing this a few times, she got it. Now even before I pick up a tuna can, all I have to do is say the word and she is instantly in the kitchen looking up at me.

Cats can also follow human gestures and understand quite a few of them. If they have a strong bond with you and do not perceive the gesture as an order, they will usually cooperate. If I tap a spot next to me on the couch and say, "Ember here," she usually hops up to the spot.

I once saw a PBS video about differences between humans and chimps. It demonstrated that chimps do not understand human pointing gestures, but both dogs and cats do.

[Warpy]

4. Funny you should mention chimps

While their copy of the FOX P2 gene differs from ours, meaning teaching one to speak English is a study in futility, close observation of their lip smacking and exhalation when face to face with each other indicates a sort of proto language, probably something our own ancestors might have done before the FOX P2 mutation permitted speech (well, it's not the only thing but I'm not going to write a book). https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0232

Now cats. One of my rescues didn't understand a word I said, so I tried him on Spanish. Bingo! Turned out he had a pretty extensive vocabulary, it just wasn't in English, which he never really learned. I suppose I'm glad he didn't speak Din'e or Tewa, he'd have gone through the next 13 years thinking I was a complete blockhead. As it was, he was total lap fungus.

[wnylib]

5. LOL. My previous cat was a stray that

Last edited Tue May 17, 2022, 10:45 AM - Edit history (1)

a Mexican American friend found huddled under her car. She took him in, cleaned him up and lavished affection on him. She (my friend) was very verbal and demonstrative with him. But she had taken in other strays, too, so after a few months her husband said to find another home for that kitty. I took him.

My friend often spoke Spanish at home, and her husband understood her, but he spoke English most of the time. The cat was bilingual! When I first got him at about 7 months old, I used English and he responded to words like "hungry." Then, just to see how he would react, I tried some Spanish words of endearment with him that I knew my friend had used with him.

When I said, "que gato guapo" or "carisimo" to him, he rolled on his back and wiggled with joy, then snuggled up to me. Since my friend was not present, the cat was responding to the words that he had heard before and associated with affection.

Whenever I asked, "¿Donde esta´ el gato?" he would come out from wherever he was and look at me. Not sure what that was about. Maybe he just understood the word gato and thought I was calling him.