Cats understand their name, they just choose to ignore it, study shows

Your feline friend knows that it has a name and knows when you’re using it – it just couldn’t care less, according to a study released today.

Cat owners have long believed their fluffy pet recognises when its name is being spoken and just pretends not to, and findings have confirmed this to be the case.

“Cats were perfectly capable of picking their own name out of a jumble of sounds and other recorded words,” chief researcher Dr Simon Williams at the Department of Moggology at Kettering University told us.

“But unless their name is accompanied by the sound of their bowl rattling they’re not remotely interested.

“We played cats a succession of recorded random words and they just tuned them out as being of no interest at all – until we included their own name.

“As soon as they heard that, they actively relaxed further and ignored it even more. It’s like your cat responds to being called by paying even less attention than none at all. It’s quite incredible.

“However, then we played the sound of a food bowl being quietly filled three rooms away and the subject animals appeared instantly, which opens up whole new vistas of research.”

Researchers went on to say that their next experiment will focus on whether cats can defy conventional physics and move faster than light at the slightest hint of a pack of Kit-E-Cat being opened.

“It looks like Schroedinger was wrong all along,” Dr Williams added.

“His cat wasn’t dead, it just couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge him in any way at all.”

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