According to a new study, that assumption would be wrong. Researchers believe that cats recall both other cats and humans based on their specific names and specific faces.
Humans are social creatures, and our individuality is so important to us that it is considered insulting to forget someone’s name. Yet one might think that cats, freed of human social customs, wouldn’t feel the pressure to remember each other’s names in the same way.
“We examined whether cats matched familiar cats’ names and faces… and human family members’ names and faces…” the authors explained in a study published by the journal Scientific Reports. For example, “Cats were presented with a photo of the familiar cat’s face on a laptop monitor after hearing the same cat’s name or another cat’s name called by the subject cat’s owner… or an experimenter.”
Source: www.salon.com