This is considered the sixth sense of cats, helping them locate you even when you are out of their sight.
Cats have muscles in their ears that allow them to rotate 180 degrees to capture faint sounds that humans cannot hear.
Additionally, the hearing ability of cats is far more developed than ours, with an extremely wide frequency range.
Domestic cats have a high level of social spatial awareness. (Illustration: Bao Ky).
For instance, a cat’s hearing is very sensitive to ultrasound (extremely high sounds), which we cannot perceive.
Cats can also hear sounds at very low intensities. While we may not hear a sound from more than 4 meters away, cats can detect it from up to 25 meters away.
Therefore, even if its owner tiptoes or walks in socks on the second floor, the cat can sense you even if it is on the first floor.
Thanks to the sounds they perceive in their environment, a cat’s brain can create a map of the home, allowing it to accurately locate its owner and other pets.
Researchers refer to this as the social spatial awareness of domestic cats.
To analyze this sixth sense, researchers brought approximately 50 domestic cats into an experiment in familiar environments such as homes or cat cafes.
First, they recorded the voices of the cats’ owners and then played the audio through speakers.
The results showed that the cats did not exhibit signs of surprise, indicating that they were well aware that their owner was not accustomed to instantaneously moving from one place to another.
This demonstrates that cats can clearly perceive their owner’s habits and true voice.
Scientists concluded that depending on the sounds cats perceive, even in cases where they do not see us, they can still identify and remember where you are.
