A recent study has demonstrated that pets can learn words faster than human infants.
A group of scientists from Abadzu University in Japan, led by Sago Takegi, conducted an experiment with 31 adult cats using methods typically applied to study language development in children. The cats were able to associate fictional terms with images after just four repetitions, which is significantly faster than what is required for infants (16–20 repetitions).
During the testing, the animals watched a screen displaying cartoons while audio recordings of their owners' voices were played. When the words did not match the images, the cats showed confusion, spending 33% more time looking at the screen.
The study confirms that cats pay close attention to human communication and are capable of quickly forming associations between words and objects.
The researchers emphasize the need for further studies to determine whether these abilities are unique to cats or characteristic of other species.
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