Cats "talk" we listen

Copyright 2009 Frania Shelley-Grielen

If you live with a cat and have spent any time trying to figure out what it is that they want or just what it is they are trying to tell you, you’ve probably been helped along by a purr here and a meow there. A hungry cat or a cat who wants attention has a definite way of letting you know it.

A study in this month’s edition of Current Biology found that cats purr differently in proximity to people when they are seeking food. Individual owners are able to gauge the message contained within “Solicitation” purrs which are perceived as “more urgent and less pleasant.”

While dogs seem to be more keyed into our reliance on the visual, our feline companions also rely on our ability to interpret the meaning in a range of auditory signals or words for humans and purrs and meows for cats.  Cats communicating with humans have developed what appears to be a particularly effective repertoire. A 2004 article in the Journal of Comparative Psychology notes that while meows may be the most widespread cat-to-human verbal communications they are not so common cat-to-cat (undomesticated kittens will vocalize but usually stop when they reach adulthood). Meowing is in fact found in only about 5 of the 40 cat species that exist. The African wild cat--thought to be the ancestor of the house cat, is one of the cats that do meow. But when the author tested the reactions of human listeners comparing the meows of the African wild cat to those of the domestic cats the results were in favor of domestic cats.