While dogs are colloquially known as “man’s best friend,” cats also share a unique and emotionally close bond with their human companions. Scientists have proved that cats feel genuine affection for humans, know how to communicate their wants and needs to humans, and can even literally take on their human’s personality traits.

Now comes a new piece of evidence to add to the growing pile that allows felines to join canines in the pantheon of humanity’s favor: Cats are able to distinguish, just by listening, whether the humans they care about are talking to them or to other humans.

In a paper published in the journal Animal Cognition, researchers from the French college Université Paris Nanterre studied how 16 domesticated cats reacted to hearing the prerecorded voice of their companion when the owner in question was speaking directly to them. The researchers then contrasted this with the cats’ reactions to prerecordings of their owners speaking to another […]