Almost any cat owner will testify to the felines apparent indifference to humans when we call their names. But according to a new study， cats do recognize their names—or at least that we are indeed addressing them. Its just that they still may not respond.

“I think cats associate sounds of their names with some rewards or punishments，” said Atsuko Saito， a behavioral scientist at Sophia University in Tokyo.

Saito previously demonstrated that cats recognize their owners voices. In the new work， she and her colleagues investigated the reactions of cats to hearing humans say their names. The study included 78 cats from Japanese households and from a “cat café”， a business where patrons can interact with felines.

Saito and her colleagues had owners say four words that sounded similar to their cats names until the animals habituated to those words and stopped responding. Next， the owners said the felines actual names. And indeed， the cats had more pronounced responses—moving their ears， heads， tails or meowing—than they did to similar words or to other cats names. The study is in the journal Scientific Reports.

The researchers also had people unfamiliar to the cats speak the names. Although the felines responses were less prominent than when their owners called them， they still appeared to recognize the words when spoken by strangers. But does that mean the cats know they are being called by name？

“There is no evidence that cats have the ability to recognize themselves， like us. So the recognition about their names is different from ours.” But Saito says she thinks we might be able to teach cats to recognize other words in addition to their names. “My colleagues are investigating whether cats recognize other cohabiting cats names.”

Could this knowledge mean that humans could eventually train cats to respond to voice commands， the way dogs do？

幾乎所有的貓主人都會證明，當(dāng)我們叫貓的名字時，它們明顯會無視我們。但是，根據(jù)一項新的研究，貓確實能辨認(rèn)出自己的名字——或者至少知道我們確實在叫它，只不過它們可能不會回應(yīng)而已。

“我認(rèn)為貓將其名字的發(fā)音和一些獎勵或懲罰聯(lián)系在一起。”東京上智大學(xué)的行為科學(xué)家Atsuko Saito說。

Saito之前的研究證明過貓能辨認(rèn)出其主人的聲音。在這項新研究中，她和她的同事調(diào)查了貓聽到人類叫它們的名字時的反應(yīng)。該研究調(diào)查了78只來自日本住戶和“貓咖啡館”的貓（“貓咖啡館”是一家顧客可與貓互動的店鋪）。

Saito和她的同事讓貓的主人說四個與貓的名字發(fā)音相似的詞，直到貓習(xí)慣了這些詞，不再做出反應(yīng)。接下來，貓的主人說出貓真正的名字。事實上，比起聽到與它們的名字發(fā)音相似的詞或其他貓的名字，貓對聽到它們的名字時做出的反應(yīng)更明顯——它們會晃動耳朵、頭、尾巴，或者發(fā)出叫聲。這項研究發(fā)表在《科學(xué)報告》雜志上。

研究人員還讓與這些貓不熟的人叫貓的名字。盡管貓的反應(yīng)不如聽到主人叫它們的名字時那么明顯，但它們似乎還是能辨認(rèn)出陌生人說的名字。不過，這是否意味著貓知道別人在叫它的名字？

“至今還沒有證據(jù)證明貓像人類一樣有認(rèn)識自己的能力。因此，它們對其名字的認(rèn)知與我們?nèi)祟惒煌?。”但Saito說，她認(rèn)為我們或許能教貓認(rèn)識除其名字以外的詞語。“我的同事正在調(diào)查貓是否能辨認(rèn)出與其共處一室的其他貓的名字。”

這一研究是否意味著人類最終能訓(xùn)練貓，讓它像狗一樣對聲音指令做出反應(yīng)呢？

feline /'fi?la?n/ n. 貓科動物

indifference /?n'd?fr?ns/ n. 冷淡;無動于衷

address /?'dres/ v. 稱呼（某人）;冠以（某種稱呼）

She addressed my father as “Mr Stevens”.

investigate /?n'vest?ɡe?t/ v. 研究;調(diào)查

patron /'pe?tr?n/ n. 顧客;?？?/p>

evidence /'ev?d?ns/ n. 證明;證據(jù)

in addition to除……以外（還）

In addition to English， he has to study a

second foreign language.