Cats pay more attention to us than we realize: They outperform babies in word association game

Since cats and humans began coexisting 10,000 years ago, these felines have become smaller, their fur has changed color, and, in some cases, their once-antisocial behavior has become more docile. But that’s not all: cats may also pay more attention to humans than we realize, according to a new study published in Scientific Reports. Led by Japanese scientists, the research explored domestic cats’ ability to rapidly form picture-word association, a process central to language acquisition.

In the experiment — originally designed for human babies in the 1990s — 31 cats were placed in front of a computer displaying two pictures: a sun and a unicorn. For nine seconds, the images expanded and contracted on the screen, while a recording played of each cat’s caregiver saying two nonsensical words: “keraru” for unicorn and “parumo” for sun. The cats watched and listened until they became bored, which was indicated by their eye contact with the screen. When they stopped looking at the computer, it signaled that the stimulus was no longer novel.

After a short break, the pictures were shown again four more times, but with the words swapped — “keraru” was paired with the image of the sun, and “parumo” with the unicorn. The cats spent, on average, 33% more time looking at the screen — sometimes in confusion — suggesting that they recognized the mismatch and had formed an association between the word and the image from the first part of the experiment.

Shao Takagi, a cognitive scientist at Azabu University in Japan and the lead author of the study, was surprised to find that “cats, like human babies, could form associations between words and pictures in a very short period of time.” This, according to Takagi, shows that “cats pay attention to what we say in everyday life and try to understand us more than we realize.”

The study concludes that cats were able to form these associations more quickly than human infants. The majority of cats learned the picture-word association after just two nine-second sessions, while most 14-month-old human babies required four 15-second sessions. However, Takagi notes that this doesn’t mean human babies are slower at learning words. “Cats quickly lost interest in the stimuli, which made it seem like they were learning faster than humans, but it is not a real difference in learning speed,” she explains.

Genetic change after domestication

There are several explanations for this behavior. One of the primary reasons is that cats are particularly sensitive to sounds. Eleonora Toresi, a veterinarian specializing in feline behavior and clinical practice at Gattos Hospital in Madrid, says that the results of the study did not surprise her because felines “have a much wider hearing range than humans, dogs, and other animals.” Additionally, their response was natural, as cats typically react to short, intense stimuli like those used in Takagi’s experiments. This sensitivity makes designing scientific research challenging, as it is impossible to determine whether the cats “stopped associating the sound with the picture or simply got bored,” admits Toresi.

However, the discovery should not be underestimated. “It’s true that cats pay attention to us and try to understand us, more than we think,” says Toresi. “There’s a false belief that they are independent and do not care, but cats have always had this curious behavior towards humans. It’s just that now we are paying more attention to them.”

Science, in some ways, supports her view. In 2014, the journal PNAS published a study in which researchers sequenced the genomes of 22 domestic cats from different parts of the world and compared them to wild cat species in Europe. They found that at least 13 genes had changed between the two species. These genetic modifications may have played a key role in the cognitive differences between domestic cats and their wild counterparts, helping them develop the ability to pay attention to humans, recognizing that such attention might lead to a food reward.

Cats, however, may not show the same level of loyalty as dogs: they are wilder and more unpredictable because their genome has been under less evolutionary pressure. This is not surprising, considering that dogs have been interacting with humans for over 30,000 years. What’s more, cats, unlike dogs, were not domesticated for a specific purpose. Domestication is believed to have begun after the advent of agriculture in the Middle East, when wild cats, attracted by rodents nesting near grain stores, left the deserts and settled in towns and villages to hunt. Over time, these cats and the first farmers began to tolerate each other.

Association, but not understanding

There’s another reason why cats responded this way to the Japanese experiment. Ignacio Morgado, emeritus professor of psychobiology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, explains that, like all mammals, felines “have the capacity to acquire conditioned behaviors. Even laboratory rats, which are less evolved animals than cats or dogs, are capable of this type of conditioning.” Laboratory tests have shown that rodents can link pictures with sounds or even with other images. “This ability to associate a sound with an image, or a sound with a smell, or a place, is typical of almost all mammals,” says Morgado.

However, it’s important not to mistake this behavior for linguistic ability. “In the study, cats were able to discriminate between words and pictures, not by their meaning, because they obviously do not have linguistic abilities, but by their ability to identify images and sounds and associate them,” the psychobiologist points out.

Ultimately, it’s about survival. Pets naturally pay attention to their owners because they are seeking a reward. Neuroscientist Rodrigo Quian Quiroga explains: “If a cat grows up domesticated by humans and is called by auditory cues, it makes sense that the animal develops the ability to distinguish between different types of calls.” The cat doesn’t understand the word itself but associates it with a subsequent action based on its experience. “This reaction is not the same as understanding,” Quian emphasizes.

Morgado concurs, noting that this confusion may arise from a tendency among ethologists — those who study animal behavior — to “become so attached to their pets that they attribute human faculties to them.”

Toresi adds: “It’s common to make the mistake of anthropomorphizing animals. My cats are like my children, but I know they are cats, so I am not going to treat them like children. The key is to understand their nature. I am not going to expect them to understand words.”

This veterinarian highlights that there are still many questions surrounding cats and their behavior: “There are many aspects that we do not know about, and this research is important to know how our pets interpret us and thus be able to communicate better with them, to know how to respect them and improve their quality of life and their coexistence with humans.”

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