Pet cats can recognize their own names if their names are used regularly by their owners, according to new results by a team of researchers in Japan.
The research was performed largely within the lab of Professor Toshikazu Hasegawa from the University of Tokyo with Atsuko Saito, Ph.D., first author of the research paper. Saito is now an associate professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.
Evolution of social cats
This is the first project to study cats’ ability to understand human voices. Other research projects have discovered that apes, dolphins, parrots, and dogs can understand some words spoken by humans.
Saito speculates that mammals like dolphins and apes are naturally social animals and are therefore more inclined to interact with humans and respond to human cues.
Read more at University in Tokyo
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