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Does your cat understand what you say?

Maybe it knows the meaning of 'dinner' or 'outside?'

Well, a new study suggests that cats could be faster at learning words than human babies.

It seems our furry feline friends have been paying close attention to how we communicate over the 12,000 years they have lived alongside us.

The study by cognitive scientists Saho Takagi, Hikari Koyasu, Miho Nagasawa & Takefumi Kikusui from Abazu University in Japan used an experimental design that has previously been used to study the development of language in 14-month-old babies.

The research team tested 31 adult test cats .

During the experiment they placed the cats in front of a laptop which showed two short cartoon animations while an audio track played of their human caregivers saying a made-up word.

They then showed them the images again, but this time half the audio clips didn't match the images.

By studying the cats reactions they were able to determine whether they were confused and noticed when the audio was wrong.

The researchers say the results suggested that cats are quickly capable of forming a link between pictures and words - and that they did it faster than the babies from a previous study, although that experiment used some different techniques.

Cognitive scientist Saho Takagi said to Science magazine: “I was very surprised, because that meant cats were able to eavesdrop on human conversations and understand words without any special reward-based training.”

She went on to explain: “Some cats even gazed at the screen with their pupils dilated during the 'switched' condition.

“Cats pay attention to what we say in everyday life - and try to understand us - more than we realize.”

So, do you think your cat understands you? Let us know in the comments below.