PUBLISHED April 4, 2019

Cats associate their names with rewards, such as food and petting. Photograph by Marc Moritsch, Nat Geo Image Collection

Cats know many things: how to catch mice, what the sound of the can opener means, and even how to take over the internet.

But the one question cat expert Atsuko Saito always gets is whether cats recognize their own names, an ability that's well known in dogs.

In a new study in the journal Scientific Reports, the psychologist at Tokyo’s Sophia University showed that they do know their names—even when called by a stranger.

Cats are Saito’s favorite animal, and after studying primate cognition in graduate school, she set her research sights on the oft-misunderstood pets. (Is everything you think about cats wrong?)

“I love cats. They’re so cute and so selfish. When they want to be touched, they’ll come by me, but when they want to be left alone, they’ll just leave,” she says, laughing.

Her past experiments have revealed cats can interpret human gestures to find hidden food, recognize their owner’s voice, and beg for food from a person who looks at them and calls their name—all of which suggested that felines know their names.

What’s in a name?

Saito and colleagues tested this hypothesis by observing a total of 78 housecats and felines living in cat cafés in Japan.

Pets of NatGeo: See How Our Photographers Captured Perfect Pics Capturing portraits of dogs, cats, rabbits, tortoises, and guinea pigs is no easy task. In this behind-the-scenes video, see some of the tricks, funny moments, and unpredictability involved in photographing some of our employee's best friends.

In the homes and cafés, the researchers asked both owners and strangers to call a cat’s name, and then videotaped responses that would indicate recognition, such as ear and head movements and tail swishing.

In a series of four different experiments, the team discovered cats showed a meaningful response to their own names—even after hearing four similar-sounding nouns or the names of other cats living in the home or the cat café. ( Read how to properly train your cat.)

The cats showed interest not only when their owners called their names, but even when strangers did.

It’s possible cats may have learned to pair the sound of their name with rewards, such as food and petting, Saito explains.

“It was a really well-done study,” says Jennifer Vonk, a cognitive psychologist at Oakland University in Michigan who wasn’t involved in the research. (Learn surprising things you never knew about your cat.)

Vonk has done a similar, anecdotal experiment with her own cats, in which her husband says all sorts of silly names in a sing-song voice to see if the pets respond. And they usually don’t.

Dogs at an advantage

Even though the cats’ responses weren’t as enthusiastic as those of dogs, Saito notes that canines are literally born to respond to their names.

For centuries, people have selectively bred dogs to be obedient and responsive. Cats, on the other hand, pretty much domesticated themselves when wildcats followed mice and rats into agricultural settlements. Not only that, but domestic dogs have a 20,000-year headstart over cats.

close A Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) sits primly on the shore of Loon Lake in Ontario, Canada in 1906. These 11- to 37-pound (5 to 17 kilogram) cats live in boreal forests across Canada and down into the northern United States. Photograph by George Shiras, Naitonal Geographic Creative close In a picture taken in 1997, a bobcat (Lynx rufus) gets ready to gobble down a muskrat in Idaho. Photograph by Michael Quinton, Minden Pictures/National Geographic close Photographer Frans Lanting caught a photo of this caracal (Caracal caracal) with a camera trap in Kavir National Park, Iran, in 2011. Photograph by Frans Lanting, Nat Geo Image Collection close Black-footed cats (Felis nigripes) crouch at their burrow in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, in an image from 2011. Photograph by Frans Lanting, Nat Geo Image Collection close The jaguarundi's stubby ears don't seem very catlike, but its haughty expression will be familiar to many a cat owner. Photograph by Pete Oxford/Minden Pictures close This oncilla (Leopardus tigrinus), otherwise known as a little spotted cat or tiger cat, gazes from the bars of a cage after being rescued from poachers in Peru in 2009. Photograph by Jason Edwards, Nat Geo Image Collection close A European wildcat (Felis silvestris) pauses in a grassy field in Moldova in 2009. Photograph by Laurent Geslin/Wild Wonders of Europe close The Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) is perhaps the most endangered wildcat in the world. Photograph by Pete Oxford, WWE/National Geographic close A pampas cat (Leopardus colocolo) peers from behind a tree branch in the Cerrado ecosystem in Brazil, in 2008. Photograph by Luciano Candisani/Minden Pictures close A male fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) triggers a camera trap on a fish farm in Sam Roi Yot, Thailand (map). Photograph by Morgan Heim close A serval cat (Leptailurus serval) trips a remote camera in Zakouma National Park, Chad, in 2006. Photograph by Michael Nichols, Nat Geo Image Collection close An ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) poses on a tree root in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest in 2004. Photograph by Pete Oxford/Minden Pictures close An eight-month-old male European lynx (Lynx lynx) steps around a dead roe deer in the Jura Mountains of Switzerland in 2011. Photograph by Laurent Geslin close The margay (Leopardus wiedii), or tree ocelot, displays huge eyes as it prowls through a forest in Gamboa, Panama. Photograph by Mark Payne-Gill, Minden Pictures close Tap images for captions

Also, one of the first things dogs learn in obedience school is how to answer to their name, which in turn makes them easier to work with and socialize.

“We’re always taking dogs out for walks and introducing them to new people. And you can easily train dogs with treats and other rewards,” Vonk notes.

“You bring cats to the lab, and they just freeze.”

Evolution in progress

Saito notes domestic cats are still evolving—thanks to us.

Until a decade or two ago, most pet cats spent most of their time outside, coming indoors only at night or in bad weather. (See our favorite photos of pet felines.)

With more and more cats spending their lives inside, in closer contact with humans, a cat’s ability to read and respond to our cues may become even stronger.