This is why two scientists from the University of Tokyo, Atsuko Saito and Kazutaka Shinozuka, decided to prove what every cat owner around the world already knows: cats can recognize their owner’s voice, but they deliberately choose to ignore it.

The researchers recorded every cat owner’s voice calling their cat, and then recorded four people calling the cat in the very same way, and observed the cats’ reaction to every voice, analyzing tail, head and ear movements, in addition to pupil dilation and general behavior.

As expected, cats reacted more intensely to their owners’ voices, but most of them didn’t meow back and didn’t even bother following the direction of the voice.

Basically, they clearly recognized the familiar voice of their owners, but willingly chose to ignore it.

According to Saito and Shinozuka, the reason of this behavior dates back to thousands of years ago, when humans started to domesticate dogs and cats. Over the centuries, humans trained dogs to obey to orders, but didn’t do the same with cats, and this is basically the reason why your cat never shows up when you call him, no matter if he’s hiding under your bed or into the sink.