10 . In the first half of 2022, scientists studying animal communication discovered that some dogs connect objects with words at a similar level to babies. Then what about cats, which are commonly believed to be unconcerned about human affairs?
Saho Takagi, a researcher at Azabu University, doubted cats’ seeming unconcern. “Cats don’t appear to listen to people’s conversations, but in fact, they do.” According to a past research, cats understand human communication better than expected. Like dogs, they can use human pointing and stares to find food. They even can tell the difference between human facial expressions and attentional states, according to a 2021 study. However, cats can do more than that.
Another study showed that cats can discriminate their human-given name from the names of their cat friends (those that live in the same house). The researchers believed that cats learned to connect names with other cats by observing communication between their owners and their cat friends.
In a recently published study, Takagi and her colleagues compared two groups of cats: one group was made up of house cats and lived with at least two other cats; the other was made up of cats that lived in “cat cafés”, which had up to 30 cats. They used a simple, two-phase(阶段) test. During the name phase, the study participant(参与者) was softly placed in front of a laptop computer. Then the researcher played a recording of its owner saying the name of its cat companions(同伴).
Immediately after the name phase came the face phase. A cat’s face appeared on the monitor. Sometimes, the cat that appeared on the screen matched the name spoken; other times the name and the picture did not match. If cats knew the names of their cat friends, they would investigate by staring doubtfully at the monitor when the name and the picture did not match. House cats had a significantly longer stare than café cats, indicating that house cats generally expected an exact cat’s face upon hearing the cat’s name.
“This is the first to show that house cats link human words and their social companions through daily experiences,” the researchers wrote, “However, we could not recognize the mechanism(机制) for learning. But with more and more scientists becoming interested in cats who are much smarter than we praise them, this question is sure to be solved.”
1. What’s people’s common understanding of cats?
| A．They have their own language. |
| B．They show no interest in human things. |
| C．They can connect objects with words. |
| D．They can use human instructions to find food. |
2. By comparing cats and dogs in Paragraph 2, the author wants to stress ______.
| A．cats and dogs get along well with humans |
| B．cats’ ability to learn is stronger than dogs’ |
| C．cats’ ability goes beyond body language recognition |
| D．cats and dogs are all clever animals in people’s eyes |
3. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “discriminate” in Paragraph 3?
| A．Tell. | B．Protect. | C．Excuse. | D．Learn. |
4. What did the researchers conclude about house cats from the study?
| A．They are curious about cat names. |
| B．They know the names of their cat friends. |
| C．They are dependent on their owners. |
| D．They like communicating with each other. |
5. What is the unsettled question of the study?
| A．How cats can recognize other cats’ face. |
| B．Whether cats are much smarter than expected. |
| C．Whether cats can understand human communication. |
| D．How cats link human words and their social companions. |
