In honor of National Cat Day I have decided to investigate the question many pet owners often ask, how does my cat understand me? As a cat owner myself, I have always been curious as to how my cat, named Oreo (pictured below), responds to so many nicknames and words but yet won’t respond to her own name. Does she understand what we are saying or is she just responding to tones in our voices in the hopes of getting fed again?
Through investigating this question I came across two articles which I found interesting one such article found on dailymail.co.uk discusses a Japanese study which recorded 
responses of cats to several different voices, one of which being their owner’s. This study found that the cats displayed pupil dilation as well as ear and body movements when hearing their owner’s voices but not the other voices. This article also goes on to talk about a doctor who is using artificial intelligence software to translate the sounds of other animals into English. These are both very interesting findings which could mean that our cats understand or at least have an idea of what we are saying. The other article I found on the National Geographic website is an interview with John Bradshaw, a cat behavior expert. In this interview Bradshaw explains that cats, unlike dogs, treat humans as just any other cat and act accordingly. This may suggest that cats don’t actually understand anything we are saying and are just acting according to a set of instinctual guidelines.
So do cats actually understand us or not? Both of these articles have somewhat differing viewpoints on this subject but it is important to look at the validity of the evidence when making a decision. First up is the Japanese study, for which there are no names or organizations associated which immediately makes me question if this is an actual study and if these nameless people are average joes or actual specialists. The next problem with this is there aren’t a number of subjects provided, this means that there could have been only two cats studied, certainly not enough to draw a valid conclusion. Then there is the actual study itself, there is a chance that the results found were caused by a third variable such as the unfamiliar situation and surroundings. Then there is the other article with John Bradshaw, for this article the reader is not exactly sure how many studies were conducted and with how many cats they were conducted. With all this being said, I still have my hopes that cats can understand us and for now that will have to do.
Asia, the Pavlov idea is interesting to me and this could definitely explain why my cat comes when we call her name, which is usually what we do when we are feeding her. She is probably just expecting food when she hears her name.
Rebecca, I like the link that you posted and I often assume that my cat is ignoring me on purpose when she doesn’t respond to me. I wonder though if they had had more than 20 cats in this study if they would have gotten different results and if the results in this study could be caused by unfamiliar conditions and people. I say this because my cat, for example, is very scared of anyone not in my immediate family (as well as my brother) and I feel the reaction the seeing unfamiliar people could interfere with this experiment.
I like how you brought up the validity of the sources you found. Most students find something that appeals or relates to their topic and believe what they see simply because they want to believe it. To be honest, I am more of a dog person because I always felt that cats do not understand humans like dogs or other friendly pets do. Cool topic to address!
This is an interesting topic to think I have to say. Although I never have an experience of rising a cat I still love those fluffy creatures around. Like you said, it is a little hard to get the answer that whether cats can get what people saying, because there’s no such equipment to know if they can really understand the content of the conversation or they just get our speaking tons and way of talking. Besides, if we want to set control group to do the compare research, the chance will seriously influence the answer we get from research. And because the third variety, like the different level of IQ of cats, it is still a math about this question. Here’s a link to tell something interesting about cats, although most of them are not proven yet, it’s still worth to read(http://www.rd.com/slideshows/13-things-you-didnt-know-about-cats/#slideshow=slidead8)
I really appreciate you bringing up the idea that cats have the potential to understand us, (of course I am biased to think that because I am an owner of two cats myself). My cats, just like yours, doesn’t really respond to their names but rather a sound that is kind of like a clicking noise I make with my mouth. When I call their names, the only thing they do is rotate their ear–which I think if more of acknowledgement of my voice–but when I make the one sound they come running.
This makes me think that it doesn’t have much to do with voice recognition. I think it is more of a type of conditioning. Similar to the Pavlov’s Dog Experiement , I believe that cats are more likely to be responding because of something we did early on in our relationships with them. When I first got my cats, I would give them a treat every time they responded to me calling them over with the noise, but I have also noticed that I am more likely to call out their name if I am upset when them–which probably deters them from coming when I call their name. Maybe you can remember what you did early on in the relationship with you cat that answers why it won’t respond when you call its name.
I like how you questioned the structure and truth of the actual experiments you were writing about. I have not seen anyone do that yet, unless I have missed something. I personally do not like cats, however, I used to have three and they always seemed to torture me. The louder I yelled at them, the kore often they would do whatever bothered me. So it seemed that they learned from sounds and not realizing it bothered me, continued to do the actions they got a response from. Maybe they just form a habit and actually don’t understand. Or maybe they are smarter than we give them credit for. But whatever it is, I still do not like them haha. Your cat is cute though.
I was a cat owner for over 14 years (unfortunately, we had to put my cat to sleep this year) and I always wondered the exact same thing. Occasionally, my cat Toto (yes, dog’s name) would respond to his own name, but always turned around when he heard my voice or I tried to get his attention. I think these studies, as you pointed out, leave us to still wonder about this question and do not give a very straightforward answer. If a more official study is conducted with a larger amount of cats being tested, I’m sure that we will be able to have an answer sometime in the future. I would definitely like to know the answer to this, as I asked this question for 14 years and am really curious about it. This article (http://www.pawnation.com/2013/12/04/cats-understand-us-ignore-us-on-purpose/) discusses this topic and a study that tried to find out the answer for this question. It may not be the most reliable study in the world, but it is definitely offers interesting results!