Scientists have already studied how dogs respond to people’s behavior and speech. But researchers are just scratching the surface of human-cat interactions. House cats do appear to respond to the expressions on people’s faces. Cats can also tell different human voices. But can cats recognize their own names?

Saito, a psychologist at Sophia University in Tokyo, and her colleagues decided to find the answer. They asked the owners of 77 cats to say four nouns of similar length followed by the cat’s name. Cats gradually lost interest in each random(随机的) noun. But when the owner said a cat’s name, the cats reacted strongly. They moved their ears, head or tail, changed their back paw’s position. And, of course, they miaowed.

These findings mean that cats join the ranks of animals that have shown some sort of response in experiments to the names people give them. Those animals include dogs, dolphins, apes and parrots. It’s hard to compare the number of words across species, though. Some dogs, for example, can tell the difference between hundreds of human words.

The study makes a strong case that cats are perfectly capable of recognizing their own names. Getting a treat or hug as a reward is part of how cats learn to recognize a name. However, owners may also use their cat’s name in a negative setting, like yelling at Fluffy to get off the stove. As a result, cats can probably learn to associate these familiar utterances with good and bad experiences, Saito notes. And that might not be great for human-cat relations. So only using a cat’s name in a positive context and using a different term in a negative context could help cats and humans communicate more clearly.

So cats may recognize their names. But will they come when called? Don’t get your hopes up.

【小题1】What made cats react strongly according to Saito’s study?

A．Their owners.	B．A random noun.
C．Their own names.	D．A delicious meal.

【小题2】The findings show _________.

A．all dogs will respond on hearing their names

B．it’s extremely difficult to tell cats’ names from dogs’

C．scientists know how to tell the difference between animals

D．there is difference in the number of words recognized among animals

【小题3】Which of the following could replace the underlined word “utterances” in Paragraph 4?

A．words

B．situations

C．observations

D．owners

【小题4】What should people avoid to improve human-cat communication?

A．Giving a treat or hug as a reward.

B．Calling their name in a positive context.

C．Using a different term in a negative setting.

D．Associating their name with bad experiences.