Domesticated animals like cats, dogs, horses, and pigs can acknowledge their names when known as by human caregivers. Some new analysis means that unique large cats which might be tended to by people in captivity can even discriminate the acquainted voices of their caregivers from different individuals. The findings are described in a examine printed February 15 within the journal PeerJ Life & Environment.
[Related: Your cat probably knows when you’re talking to it.]
Previous research discovered that domesticated cats can acknowledge their names and might even inform their names other than different phrases. Less consideration has been paid to how effectively non-domestic cats reply to human voices. Understanding how effectively an unique feline can differentiate from a caregiver saying their identify from a stranger might assist hold the animals safer.
“My graduate student, Taylor Crews, had worked as an exotic cat caregiver for many years and wanted to design a Masters project that informed us of their ability to respond to their name and the voice of familiar caregivers,” Jennifer Vonk, a examine co-author and comparative/cognitive psychologist at Oakland University in Michigan, tells PopSci. “Having been in the zoo world, she noted that zoos are sometimes concerned that having the public speak animals’ names may be distracting for the cats.”
To look nearer, the workforce designed a collection of experiments to gauge if non-domesticated captive large cats might acknowledge acquainted voices. They performed audio recordings of recognized and unknown people to 25 totally different cat species, together with cheetahs, tigers, and lions. All of the cats had various rearing historical past, which means that a number of the cats had been raised by their moms, whereas others had been introduced up by people.
They discovered constant proof of voice recognition and the cats responded extra intensely, rapidly, and for an extended time frame to acquainted voices than they did for unfamiliar ones.
“Non-domestic cats seem to respond similarly to domestic cats in responding more strongly to a familiar caregiver’s voice, but we did not find evidence that they respond more strongly to the use of their names,” says Vonk. “We were able to show that rearing history was not predictive, but, overall, cats did respond selectively to their familiar caregiver’s voice.”
[Related: This tell-tail sign means your cat likes you.]
According to Vonk, shut human contact as a substitute of domestication was related extra intently with the cats’ potential to discriminate between human voices. This additionally challenges the concept that much less social species don’t have the identical cognitive skills as extra outgoing or group-living species like dogs.
“It is important not to assume that non-group living animals are less equipped to reason about aspects of social behavior or form social bonds,” says Vonk. “Even non-domestic cats distinguish their caregivers from other humans, suggesting they are not as indifferent as people sometimes assume.”
The workforce is additional testing the popularity of acquainted human voices in snakes and owls, to see how effectively reptiles and birds can acknowledge voices.
