An experiment is conducted to see whether cats pinpoint their owners’ locations by hearing. (Provided by Saho Takagi, a research fellow at Azabu University)

Photo/Illutration A cat peers into a camera in a test. (Provided by Saho Takagi, a research fellow at Azabu University)

Cats apparently pinpoint their masters’ locations through auditory signals, not by sight, according to a research team.

Felines often turn their faces away when their names are repeatedly called by their owners. This action does not mean the cats dislike their masters but instead shows that they are tracking people with their sense of hearing, the researchers from Kyoto University and elsewhere said.

Team member Saho Takagi, a research fellow specializing in comparative cognitive science at Azabu University who previously worked at Kyoto University, wondered how cats cognize the world around them.

Takagi, who is a cat owner, also noted that fewer research reports have been made about felines’ mental and behavioral mechanisms than those about dogs, although both animals are popular as pets.

“Experiments likely cannot be carried out smoothly since cats do not follow humans’ commands,” said Takagi, who is affiliated with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

Takagi and the other researchers believed that cats rely on auditory perception to grasp their surroundings, given that a cat’s ear comprises more than 20 kinds of muscle that can move the sensory organs to the right and left separately.

To test their hypothesis, they collected 50 cats from willing owners and feline cafe operators for the experiment.

Each cat was placed alone in a room. The prerecorded voice of the master calling out the pet’s name was played through a speaker outside the room on five occasions.

When the felines became accustomed to hearing the voice outside the room, they showed no reaction.

However, when the same voice was played for the sixth time inside the room, 4 meters from the outdoor speaker, the cats displayed signs of surprise, such as looking around.

If a different voice was played on the sixth try, the cats did not act surprised. They also showed hardly any reaction if the sixth sound was made inside the room after electronic sounds or meowing of other cats had been played outside the room several times.

The results, according to the team, suggest cats decide auditorily where their masters are, and they express surprise if their owners’ voices come suddenly from a different, impossible location.

Other people’s voices and other cats’ meowing were not enough to surprise them, likely because cats feel it is unnecessary to distinguish those noises.

“Felines see their masters in their minds even when owners are out of sight,” Takagi said.

Despite the simple design of the experiment, Takagi and other team members faced difficulties in all phases of their endeavor, including securing the needed number of cats, making the felines complete the test, and devising an objective indicator of surprise for a peer review.

The team’s findings have been published in the scientific journal Plos One at (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257611).

As the next step, Takagi is looking to examine whether cats can distinguish names and other content in voices.

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