Yes: Japanese research has shown that cats distinguish their own name from other words of similar length and sound, even when spoken by an unfamiliar voice. But this auditory discrimination does not necessarily lead to a visible behavioral response: recognizing a sound is not the same as obeying a command.
Proven sound discrimination
The landmark study, conducted by researchers at Sophia University in Tokyo (2019), tested domestic cats living in homes or cat cafes. They played a series of four common nouns followed by the cat's name, all spoken with the same intonation by their owner and then by a stranger. Result: the cats turned their head or ears toward the speaker more often when they heard their own name, a sign of habituation-dishabituation that proves a fine auditory discrimination ability, independent of the speaker's voice.
This ability relies on repeated association between a sound and a context: petting, food bowl, play. The cat learns that this particular sound pattern often signals something for them, without necessarily understanding the name as a symbolic identifier of themselves.
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Why recognition does not mean response
Unlike dogs, selected over thousands of years for cooperation and obedience to human signals, cats were domesticated mainly for their solitary hunting abilities. There is no historical selective pressure favoring a systematic motor response to a vocal call. A cat may perfectly well distinguish its own name auditorily while choosing not to come, depending on its motivation, emotional state, or the absence of reinforcement associated with being called.
Silence or apparent indifference therefore does not signal a cognitive inability, but reflects the classic gap in animal behavior between perception and action: processing auditory information is one process, behavioral response is another, shaped by context and individual learning.
