On 4/7/2019 12:19 AM, Tigger wrote:
With short video. My cats are/were pretty good at coming when called by
their
name, even allowing for cat-itudes (pretend not to hear, then get up,
for example

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019...s-how-find-out


Give this a shot at home: Say four random words to your cat—separated by
about 15 seconds—with the same length and intonation as its name. Then
say its actual name. If it swivels its ears or perks up its head,
chances are it knows what you call it.

Thanks for the post, Tigger!

I actually conducted this experiment this evening (without reading the
article). I got the gist of what the study showed.

So, I went into to the bathroom. I was talking out loud while in there,
nothing Buffy would recognize as repetative phrases. Buffy followed me
in, as she sometimes does. Nothing happening of interest in there so
she walked out. When she got outside the doorway I said her name. Her
ears swiveled back, she stopped. She sat down, turned and looked at me.
"You rang?" (I couldn't help but laugh, thinking about this post.)

So wel played for a while in the living room. Same thing with stopping
and starting and I'm just talking out loud. It doesn't have a thing to
do with our play. When she rested, her ears facing forward, she's not
looking at me... I said some nonsense. Then said her name. Ear
swivels! She turned and look at me. "You want something?"

I am a firm believer she knows her name. The rest of everything I say
may well be gibberish to her. She may choose to ignore if I call her by
name. But she definitely recognizes her name.

Jill


Cats may recognize their names because it’s the word humans say most
frequently to them, or because it’s often associated with something
positive, like petting or food, the researchers say. Indeed, the only
cats that had trouble with the task were those that lived in a cat café,
a shop that can house dozens of cats that customers pay to hang out
with. These felines could distinguish their name from random nouns, but
not from the names of the cats they shared the café with. Perhaps that’s
because visitors call the names of many cats, but only “reward” a few
with pets or treats, the scientists speculate.

The findings are the first to experimentally show that cats have some
understanding of what we are saying to them, the team concludes today in
Scientific Reports. Trained cats may understand words like “sit” or
“jump,” but it could be because humans are using additional cues, such
as hand gestures. The new findings could improve our relationships with
our pets, the researchers say; cooing your cat’s name during a stressful
vet visit, for example, might help reassure it. Still, whether cats
understand that their name is really their name remains unclear. They
may just think it’s another word for “treat.”


Actual paper is here (public!)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40616-4