Differences between vocalization evoked by social stimuli in feral cats and house cats

To investigate how socialization can affect the types and characteristics of vocalization produced by cats, feral cats (n = 25) and house cats (n = 13) were used as subjects, allowing a comparison between cats socialized to people and non-socialized cats. To record vocalization and assess the cats’ responses to behavioural stimuli, five test situations were used: approach by a familiar caretaker, by a threatening stranger, by a large doll, by a stranger with a dog and by a stranger with a cat.Feral cats showed extremely aggressive and defensive behaviour in most test situations, and produced higher call rates than those of house cats in the test situations, which could be attributed to less socialization to other animals and to more sensitivity to fearful situations. Differences were observed in the acoustic parameters of feral cats in comparison to those of house cats. The feral cat produced significantly higher frequency in fundamental frequency, peak frequency, 1st quartile frequency, 3rd quartile frequency of growls and hisses in agonistic test situations. In contrast to the growls and hisses, in meow, all acoustic parameters like fundamental frequency, first formant, peak frequency, 1st quartile frequency, and 3rd quartile frequency of house cats were of significantly higher frequency than those of feral cats. Also, house cats produced calls of significantly shorter in duration than feral cats in agonistic test situations.These results support the conclusion that a lack of socialization may affect usage of types of vocalizations, and the vocal characteristics, so that the proper socialization of cat may be essential to be a suitable companion house cat.

► The vocalizations of feral cats and house cats showed significant differences in acoustic variables indicated in the spectrogram of growls, hisses, and meows.
► Feral cats demonstrated extreme agonistic or defensive behaviour with a high call rate to testing stimuli.
► Feral cats’ lack of proper socialization may affect the vocal characteristics and usage of vocalization.
► Cats may be able to discriminate between the test situations.