Cats associate human words with images, experiment suggests

A small team of animal scientists at Azabu University, in Japan, has found via experimentation that common house cats are capable of associating human words with images without prompting or reward. In their study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, the group tested volunteer cats looking at images on a computer screen to see if they form associations between the images and spoken words.

Prior research has shown that cats know when a human is speaking their name—they respond in ways that are different than when hearing other words.

Other experiments have shown that they are able to match photos of people they know to their names. In this new effort, the researchers found that cats may be able to understand many of the words spoken to them.

To find out if cats have the ability to match a word to an object, the research team enlisted the assistance of 31 volunteer adult house cats. Each was given a word test originally designed to learn more about word association in growing human infants. It involves being shown short animations.

While the image is displayed, a nonsensical word is broadcast. Each cat saw two such animations—one was accompanied by the word “keraru,” the other “parumo.” The videos were played on a loop until the cats looked away.

After giving each cat a break, each was once again placed in front of the computer screen and the same two animations were shown on a loop. But this time, the spoken words were reversed.

As the cats watched the videos, the researchers watched the cats.

They found that they stared longer when hearing the word than during the original broadcast—some even showed pupil dilation. Both were signs that the cats were confused by the switch-up and were looking intently to find an explanation, evidence that they had associated the words with the images on the computer screen, even in the absence of a reward.

This finding, the team suggests, indicates that it is likely that cats commonly associate words they hear from humans with objects in their environment.

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