A new study says that cats can learn and react to the sound of their own name. It also claims to be the first experimental evidence that cats can discern human speech.
The results published in journal Scientific Reports do not suggest cats can attach meaning to words or understand their name refers to their identity, researcher Atsuko Saito of Sophia University in Tokyo explained. Rather, Japanese scientists documented that cats reacted differently to their own name as compared to other words — they perked up. 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 study reads.