I talk to my cats all the time - and both of them will happily "talk" back to me. They do this with me (male) more than the wife (female).

I've always found that to be the case - which is partly why I love cats so much I guess? :)

31 cats from Ankara, Turkey, in this study. They point it out themselves in the "Limitation" section of the paper. Not sure what to think of it

>The researchers propose a compelling reason for this. They suggest that because male caregivers tend to talk less to their cats and are generally less attentive, the cats adjust their communication to get their attention.

This is a very wild theory.

Anecdotally, I used to get many meows' worth of greetings arriving home from a 6 month old male kitten after only a few days with them when the rest of the household did not after weeks.

The secret: Paying attention to the kitten and being present for them. No one else did and the result was a 2 syllable meow (meow-meow) as my name contained every time I walked through the door.

From what I read, none of the study focuses on the caregivers, their habits or anything in-between.

From the paper's conclusion:

>We believe that our pilot study provides a valuable foundation for future research, in which larger sample sizes and the inclusion of additional variables (e.g., caregiver behavior and other demographic factors) measured through direct behavioral observations may reveal further subtleties in feline behavioral patterns and offer deeper insights into the social lives of domestic cats.

Oh. (Original paper[1])

1: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eth.70033