Meows are the most recognized vocal features cats use to communicate with humans and even other animal species. However, according to a research team of evolutionary biologists and animal behaviorists led by M. Knörnschild of the Humboldt University of Berlin, purrs are more stable and are individually recognizeable than meows.
The Domesticated Voice of Domestic Cats: Why Purrs Retain Individual Signatures While Meows Prioritize Plasticity
Purrs are far more unique than meows. Biologists and behaviorists have found that domestic cats have decoupled their identities from their meows, probably because of domestication, while their purrs remain unique to each of them.
Overview
Knörnschild and her team analyzed 276 meows from 14 cats and 557 purrs from 21 cats using an approach called Discriminant Function Analysis and a measurement called the Stereotypy Index. These two are used to quantify how much information is packed into a sound.
They also measured 10 Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients or MFCCs along with the duration of the pitch. Note that MFCCs are compact and robust features extracted from audio signals. They represent the spectral envelope or mathematical shape of a particular sound.
Sounds from domestic cats were also compared to the meows of five wild feline species to establish a baseline needed for understanding the effects of feline domestication. These wild species were African wildcats, European wildcats, jungle cats, cheetahs, and cougars.
Findings
The analysis of 276 meows and 557 purrs revealed that a computer algorithm could identify an individual cat by its purr with 84.6 percent accuracy, compared to only 63.2 percent accuracy for meows. The following are more specific findings about meows and purrs:
• Purrs As Vocal Footprints: Purrs are acoustically stable and periodic. They are shaped largely by the physical anatomy of cats—their throat structure and breathing rhythm—making them consistent across different situations.
• Information Content: About 4.47 bits of individual information are held in purrs. Meows held only 2.65 bits of information. These measurements were based on a computer algorithm that used Discriminant Function Analysis and Stereotypy Index.
• Meows As Plastic Sound: Meows are highly plastic or flexible. Domestic cat meows vary wildly compared to wild cat meows. Wild cats produce very consistent meows. Domestic cats, however, have developed vocal plasticity.
Takeaways
A key highlight of the study by Knörnschild et al. is its explanation of the difference between meows and purrs. The researchers proposed that meows are almost exclusively a human-directed vocalization. In the wild, adult cats rarely meow to each other.
Specifically, because domestic cats depend on humans for food and protection, they have evolved to prioritize flexibility over identity, and decoupled their identity from their meows and learned to manipulate the acoustic structure of the meow to trigger human response.
Purrs remain a stable and ancient biological signal of identity and physiological state. Because cats use purring for self-healing and close-up bonding, there was never an evolutionary pressure for the purr to change. Meows are masked vocal signatures of domestic cats.
FURTHER READING AND REFERENCE
- Russo, D., Schild, A. B., and Knörnschild, M. 2025. “Meows Encode Less Individual Information than Purrs and Show Greater Variability in Domestic than in Wild Cats.” Scientific Reports. 15(1). DOI: 1038/s41598-025-31536-7