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This is Scientific American 60-second Science, I'm Jim Daley.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是吉姆·戴利。

Almost any cat owner will testify to the felines¹' apparent indifference² to humans when we call their names. But according to a recent study, cats do recognize their names—or at least that we are indeed addressing them. It's just that they still may not respond. 

几乎所有猫主人都会证实，当我们叫猫咪的名字时，它们明显会无视我们。但根据最近的一项研究，猫确实能辨认自己的名字——或者至少认出我们确实在叫它们。只不过它们依旧不会回应而已。

"I think cats associate sounds of their names with some rewards or punishments."

“我认为猫将其名字的发音和一些奖励或惩罚联系在一起。”

Atsuko Saito, a behavioral scientist at Sophia University in Tokyo.

东京上智大学的行为科学家齐藤广子说到。

Saito previously³ demonstrated that cats recognize their owners' voices. In the new work, she and colleagues investigated the reactions of cats to hearing humans say their names. The study included 78 cats from Japanese households and from a "cat café," a business where patrons can interact with felines.

齐藤之前已经证明猫能识别主人的声音。在这项新研究中，她和同事调查了猫听到人类叫它们名字时的反应。这项研究调查的78只猫来自日本家庭和“猫咪咖啡馆”——这是顾客可以与猫咪进行互动的咖啡馆。

Saito and her colleagues had owners say four words that sounded similar to their cats' names until the animals habituated to those words and stopped responding. Next, the owners said the felines' actual names. And indeed, the cats had more pronounced responses—moving their ears, heads, tails or meowing—than they did to similar words or to other cats' names. The study is in the journal Scientific Reports.

齐藤和同事让猫主人说四个与猫的名字发音相似的词，直到猫习惯这些词后不再做出反应。接下来，猫主人说出猫的真正名字。与听到音近词或其它猫的名字相比，猫对自己名字的反应确实更加明显——它们会晃动耳朵、头、尾巴或喵喵叫。这项研究发表在《科学报告》期刊上。

The researchers also had people unfamiliar⁴ to the cats speak the names. Although the felines' responses were less prominent than when their owners called them, they still appeared to recognize the words when spoken by strangers. But does that mean the cats know they are being called by name?

研究人员还让与这些猫不熟的人说出猫的名字。尽管猫的反应不如听到主人的呼唤时那么明显，但它们似乎仍能认出陌生人说的词。但这是否意味着猫知道别人在叫它们的名字？

"There is no evidence that cats have the ability to recognize themselves, like us. So the recognition about their names is different from ours." But Saito says she thinks we might be able to teach cats to recognize other words in addition to their names. "Our colleagues are investigating whether cats recognize other cohabiting cats' names."

“没有证据表明猫有像人类一样识别自己的能力。因此，它们对自己名字的认知和我们不同。”但齐藤表示，她认为我们也许能教猫识别除自己名字之外的单词。“我们的同事正在研究猫咪是否能识别其它同居猫的名字。”

Could this knowledge mean that humans could eventually train cats to respond to voice commands, the way dogs do? Purr-haps.

这一发现是否意味着人类最终能像训练狗一样也训练猫对声音指令作出反应？可能吧。

Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Jim Daley.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是吉姆·戴利。