Unlike dogs, which often enthusiastically respond to everyone, cats choosily change their behaviour only in response to their owner’s voice
Cats respond preferentially to the voice of their owner
Adene Sanchez/Getty Images
Indoor cats react when their owners speak in a high-pitched “kitty voice” – such as by moving their heads and ears more – but not when strangers do so.
Unlike dogs, which respond to speech directed at them whether it is from their owners or from strangers, cats only seem to respond when the speaker is their owner. This may suggest that cats and their owners bond through their own unique form of communication, says Charlotte de Mouzon at University Paris Nanterre in France.
De Mouzon and her colleagues tested the behaviour of 16 cats, nine males and seven females, living in studio apartments either as single pets with a female owner or as pairs of cats with a heterosexual couple. The cats ranged in age from 8 months to 2 years old, and their owners were all veterinary students at the National Veterinary School in Alfort, near Paris.
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The team recorded the owners calling their cats by name in a high-pitched voice, as they would normally. The owners were also asked to say things in French relating to one of four contexts. These included: “Do you want to play?”, “Do you want to eat?”, “See you later!” and “How are you?”. The team then recorded the pet owners saying the same phrases to people, now using the style of speech they would typically use with friends or adult family members.
Sixteen women – not known to the cats – also had their voices recorded as they said the same four things to adult humans and to cats that they saw in videos in de Mouzon’s laboratory, using the same styles of speaking as the cat owners.
The cats heard all the recordings in their own homes, with their owners present but not interacting with them. When they heard the voices of their owners, the cats tended to interrupt their behaviour and begin doing something else, such as looking around, moving their ears and tails, or even becoming completely still.
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Even when they heard strangers speaking to them in a high-pitched, affectionate manner, calling them by name and inviting them to play or eat, the cats essentially ignored them, says de Mouzon. However, that could be related to the fact that all the cats were exclusively indoor pets, with few opportunities to interact with strangers, she says.
The findings provide further evidence that cats have strong social cognitive skills and that they are “sensitive and communicative individuals”, she says.
“We know that they react to this kind of speech and it’s a good way for cats to know that we’re addressing them,” says de Mouzon. “So, we should feel confident about speaking to our cats with this kind of ‘baby talk’.”
Journal reference: Animal Cognition, DOI: 10.1007/s10071-022-01674-w
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