{"id":5372,"date":"2026-11-12T11:03:31","date_gmt":"2026-11-12T11:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/12\/cats-only-meow-at-owners-when-they-want-something\/"},"modified":"2026-11-12T11:03:33","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T11:03:33","slug":"cats-only-meow-at-owners-when-they-want-something","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/12\/cats-only-meow-at-owners-when-they-want-something\/","title":{"rendered":"Cats only meow at owners when they want something"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>2026-11-12 11:03:30<\/b><br \/>\n<BR>Cats may have a reputation for being independent, but new research suggests their famous meows could actually be a carefully targeted attempt to get what they want from their owners.<BR><br \/>\nScientists found that cats meowed significantly more often when their humans were nearby while they were trying to reach an inaccessible food reward.<BR><br \/>\nThe researchers from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil set out to investigate the &#8220;audience effect&#8221; in cats, examining whether their behaviour changed depending on whether a person was present.<BR><br \/>\nThey observed 38 cats in their homes after placing their favourite food inside a box they could not open. <BR><br \/>\nThe animals were watched for around a minute both with and without their owners present.<BR><br \/>\nThe results showed the cats produced significantly more meows when their owners were there. <BR><br \/>\nThey also frequently stood still and looked directly towards their humans while meowing.<BR><br \/>\nWhen their owners were absent, the cats were more likely to stare silently at the door.<BR><br \/>\nThe researchers explained: &#8220;A signal is considered socially communicative, rather than simply a reflection of a motivational or emotional state, when it is influenced by the presence of other individuals \u2013 the so\u2013called audience effect.<BR><br \/>\n&#8220;In contrast, motivational or emotional responses are primarily linked to internal states and do not necessarily vary with audience presence.&#8221;<BR><br \/>\nThe team said the findings were consistent with cats using meowing as a socially directed signal designed to communicate with humans.<BR><br \/>\nThe experts explained: &#8220;[This] is consistent with meowing functioning as a socially directed signal rather than a purely motivational response.&#8221;<BR><br \/>\nThey concluded: &#8220;These findings are consistent with meowing functioning as a communicative signal rather than just an expression of internal motivation or emotion.&#8221;<BR><br \/>\nThe findings suggest that while owners may interpret a cat&#8217;s meow as affection, the animal could instead be attempting to communicate a need or persuade its human to do something.<BR><br \/>\nThe study comes after separate research suggested cats may not be particularly skilled at interpreting the emotional tone of human voices.<BR><br \/>\nAlthough cats can react to human vocalisations, researchers found no evidence that they distinguish between different emotions in voices in the same way some other domesticated animals can.<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Visit Bang Bizarre (main website) <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><script src=\"https:\/\/geo.dailymotion.com\/player\/xtbac.js\" data-video=\"\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2026-11-12 11:03:30 Cats may have a reputation for being independent, but new research suggests their famous meows could actually be a carefully targeted attempt to get what they want from&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bizarre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5373,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372\/revisions\/5373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}