Have you ever noticed a funny pattern?No matter how long you’ve raised cats or how many cats you’ve owned, the moment you see a new little kitten, your first reaction is always: “Mimi～”Sometimes, even when you see your own child at home, that word still slips out: “Mimi～”Basically, everything adorable becomes “Mimi,” and it feels like all kitten names eventually end up being “Mimi.”But! Here’s the real question:Do kittens actually understand what “Mimi” means?Or more broadly—can cats understand human speech at all?To figure out whether cats can understand what we’re saying, we first need to take a closer look at what’s going on inside a cat’s little brain.
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The Physiological Structure of a Cat’s Little Brain
As early as 1973, psychologist Harry J. Jerison studied the relative brain sizes of mammals from different periods of the Cenozoic era and proposed something called the Encephalization Quotient, or EQ.Here, EQ doesn’t refer to “emotional intelligence” but rather to the encephalization quotient—a measurement similar to the brain-to-body mass ratio, but one that also takes into account allometric growth and scaling factors related to body size, function, behavior, and anatomy.The Cambridge Veterinary Advisory Office in the United States compared the brains of cats and dogs and found that dogs have an EQ of about 1.2, while cats have an EQ of roughly 1.Judging purely by EQ, dogs appear to rank slightly higher than cats.If EQ were equivalent to IQ, then based on the data, dogs would be considered “smarter” than cats.In addition to EQ, researchers have also studied intelligence by counting the number of neurons in the cerebral cortex—since more neurons generally mean higher processing ability.Studies show that dogs have about 530 million cortical neurons, while cats have around 250 million.Of course, both are still far behind the human brain, which has roughly 16 billion cortical neurons.So, based on physiological brain structure alone, dogs do appear to have a slight advantage in intelligence over cats.However! Estimating intelligence based solely on brain weight or volume is far from accurate.Therefore, scientists have reached a common conclusion:Cats may not be less intelligent—they’re simply harder to study.
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Can Cats Understand You When You Call Their Name?
Sophia University in Tokyo conducted a study to determine whether cats can recognize their own names.A research team led by Associate Professor Atsuko Saito published a paper suggesting that cats can distinguish when humans are calling their names.To confirm or refute this idea, Saito’s team observed 78 cats in various environments, including private homes and cat cafés.
First, researchers repeatedly read out random words or other names to make cats accustomed to hearing those sounds.Once a cat gets used to a word and realizes it has no personal impact, it will naturally ignore it.Then, the team mixed each cat’s real name into a sequence of the previously repeated words.The goal was to test whether the cats would still react to their names even when surrounded by meaningless words.Researchers scored each cat’s reaction.Movements of the ears or tail were considered positive signs indicating name recognition.Some cats responded to their names while ignoring repeated nonsense words—but this was not universal.Cats living in private homes tended to respond faster and were better at distinguishing their names from other pets’ names or random words.Cats in cafés, however, appeared less interested in their own names.In conclusion:Although cats can’t understand complex human language, they can grasp the owner’s intent.For things like recognizing their names, many cats can get it—and sometimes respond.(But whether they choose to respond is a completely different matter.) -
Why Cats Sometimes Seem to Understand Human Speech
A cat’s language and cognitive systems are fundamentally different from ours, so expecting cats to “understand” human speech the way people do is impossible.However, they do extract meaning from our tone, certain repeated words, our actions, and the outcomes that follow.Words like a cat’s name, “treats,” “come,” or “canned food” sound distinct.When specific words are paired with particular tones, gestures, or consequences, cats learn to associate those words with certain events.For example, if you shout “What’s wrong with you?!” at your cat with an agitated tone and exaggerated movements, it will quickly learn that this phrase means “danger—stay away.”On the other hand, if every time you say “canned food,” your cat receives something delicious, then over time, their little radar will instantly pick up those words—and they’ll sprint toward you the second they hear them.
So, cats don’t actually understand the original meaning of human words—let alone the meaning of an entire sentence or a full conversation.In short, here’s the truth in one sentence: sometimes your cat really does know you’re calling them, but whether they choose to respond is an entirely different matter.
