FELINE VOCALIZATION: IT’S THE CAT’S MEOW!

THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE SCREAMS

An orange cat meowing.

One minute you’re having a back-and-forth conversation with your cat across the house because it’s 7:01 and he’s screaming that he’s going to starve to death because you are feeding him one minute too late. And another minute he comes back to the couch where you’re watching Netflix and he complains because you’re paying attention to the TV and not him. He’s a cat. And you’re a human. But these messages are received loud and clear. So why do cats meow? How do they know how to talk to humans? Can you understand your cat better than someone else’s cat? In this article, we’ll learn about the ways that cats communicate, what different sounds mean, and why the “meow” means more than you think.

Language as we know it appears to be unique to humans, but other animals communicate too. From whale sounds to bumblebee dances to skunk smells, communication can take many forms. And cats are no exception. If you have two cats, consider the way they interact with each other. There are verbal cues like hissing, visual cues like the movement of the ears, eyelids, and tail, and tactile cues like grooming, kneading, and biting.1 But have you ever noticed a cat “meow” to another cat? Probably not. Kittens sometimes use a “mew” to call for their mother, but generally, “meows” are reserved for talking to humans.

THE MEOW

A very cute apartment cat.

Interestingly, the first person to characterize a sort of “language” of cat sounds was cat-lady-turned-scientist Mildred Moelk. Her 1944 publication clearly demonstrated a difference in communication style when a cat is talking to another cat versus to a human.² She noted three emotions driving cat-human communication: need for petting, friendly greeting, or sympathy.

Have you noticed differences in the way your cat asks for these things? What about for a friend’s cat or a random cat you see on the sidewalk?

It turns out that humans are better at interpreting meows from a familiar cat than a random one. This suggests that cat-human pairs learn together to develop a mutual understanding of one another. In other words, your cat’s meow for “hungry” might be different than your neighbor’s cat, and you’re more likely to respond with food if your cat uses that same sound every time, thus building an association. Most cat sounds are generally negative—“I’m hungry”, “Ow that hurts”, “Why have you been gone so long”— and they almost never express positive emotions with a meow—that is “Thank you”, “That treat was delicious”, or “I love you”.³ If this sounds like manipulation, you’d be right. Many researchers think “meows” are purely manipulative, and cats learn what to say to get what they want.⁴ This doesn’t mean they don’t love you, it just means that verbal communication is not their love language.

But what about from the cat’s perspective? Scientific studies to determine what an animal is thinking or feeling can be really hard – they can’t tell us directly, so we have to come up with our own rules for whether or not an animal is “responding” to something. And even if they do “respond”, we still don’t know if they understand what they’re hearing. Cats tend to get spooked easily in new situations, which can make scientific experiments challenging. Because of this, there have been surprisingly few studies on cat behavior.⁵

One 2022 study tried to get around this by studying cats in their own homes. The scientists wanted to know if cats were more responsive to their owner’s voice than to a random voice. Indeed, they found that cats swished their tails, pivoted their ears, or stopped grooming when they heard their owner’s voice, but didn’t change their behavior when they heard a stranger’s voice.⁵

But they don’t pay attention to everything you say. We cat parents talk differently to other humans than to our cats (thankfully). Apparently, cats can recognize the difference between “aren’t you a sweet fwuffy widdle baby” and “hey, how was work?” In this study, cats only responded to pet-directed language, aka baby talk. In other words, they know when what you’re saying is relevant to them. So even though your cat is probably manipulating you when they talk, at least they listen, too.⁵

If you want to hear more from your cat, initiate a conversation! Cats speak more when they are spoken to, and like it better when you use positive words alongside their name rather than negative ones. But communication is a two-way street! Listen to your cat too, and see if you notice subtle differences between their meows that communicate different needs or emotions.⁴

WHY HUMANS?

All evidence points to the fact that cats reserve their meows for humans. In fact, feral cats almost never meow, and cat-cat interactions usually rely on sight, smell, or touch. However, kittens less than 4 weeks of age do use “mews”, a high-pitched tone, to call for their mothers. Is it possible that the meow is just a grown-up version of the mew?

Scientists think so. Perhaps the meow originated around the time of cat domestication, 8,000-12,000 years ago⁶. At this time, cats were adopted into human societies for pest control (but weren’t accepted as common household pets until fairly recently, around 1895⁴). Scientists think cats who used the mew further into adulthood could better get humans’ attention and care, and eventually the species evolved to use the meow more generally. One piece of evidence comes from a psychology study where humans were asked to rate the pleasantness of sounds from domestic housecats and their closest relatives, the African wild cats. Domestic cat meows were shorter and higher pitched, and human listeners “at all levels of experience and affinity for cats” liked domestic cat noises more. This suggests that domestic cats evolved the meow to better suit human ears.⁷ So when Whiskers is screaming relentlessly at you at max volume while you’re just trying to get some work done – well, it could have been worse.

Mademoiselle Fifi, the cat of aviator John Moisant. Image from Wikipedia.

Cats were often used as pest control on ships. Image from Wikipedia.

The Cat's Lunch by Marguerite Gérard. Image from Wikipedia.

CONCLUSION

Cats generally use a lot of communication methods, from touch, to smell, to sound, to sight. But meows are reserved only for humans. How special! Cats are believed to have evolved the meow sound around the time of domestication to get sympathy and attention from humans. Fast forward to today: the meow is now used as a way for cats to manipulate humans into getting what they want. Think about that the next time you cave and give your cat her 6th treat of the day because she’s just Too. Darn. Cute.

REFERENCES

1. Crowell-Davis, Sharon L. "Cat behaviour: social organization, communication and development." The welfare of cats (2007): 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-3227-1_1
2. Moelk, Mildred. "Vocalizing in the house-cat; a phonetic and functional study." The American Journal of Psychology 57.2 (1944): 184-205. https://doi.org/10.2307/1416947
3. Nicastro, Nicholas, and Michael J. Owren. "Classification of domestic cat (Felis catus) vocalizations by naive and experienced human listeners." Journal of Comparative Psychology 117.1 (2003): 44. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0735-7036.117.1.44
4. Science Reference Section, Library of Congress. “How Do Cats Communicate with Each Other?” The Library of Congress, 19 Nov. 2019. https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/zoology/item/how-do-cats-communicate-with-each-other/
5. Arnold, Carrie. “Your Cat Can Recognize Your Voice. Yes, Really.” Animals, National Geographic, 24 Oct. 2022. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/your-cat-can-recognize-your-voice
6. Zax, David. “A Brief History of House Cats.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 30 June 2007. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-house-cats-158390681/
7. Nicastro, Nicholas. "Perceptual and Acoustic Evidence for Species-Level Differences in Meow Vocalizations by Domestic Cats (Felis catus} and African Wild Cats (Felis silvestris lybica)." Journal of Comparative Psychology 118.3 (2004): 287. [https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0735-7036.118.3.287]