Cats understand their names and probably "choose" to ignore you

PanARMENIAN.Net - According to a study published in Scientific Reports, Japanese researchers have found that cats are able to distinguish their names from other random sounds.

Which clearly means tha your cat is just choosing not to respond to your calls to come hang out, CNN reports.

The researchers say they attempted several experiments to see how cats would react to their names, conducted in the cat's home and with their owner out of view.

The researchers chose nouns with roughly the same accent and length as the cat's name and had both the cat's owner and a stranger record them. They played the audio to the cats with 15-second intervals between each sound. The cat's name came last.

Regardless of who was speaking, most of the cats reacted in some way, moving their heads or perking up their ears when their names were spoken.

"From the results of all experiments, it thus appears that at least cats living in ordinary households can distinguish their own names from general words and names of other cats," the researchers wrote.

"This is the first experimental evidence showing cats' ability to understand human verbal utterances."