Cats use a special pleading purr to get their owners to do their bidding, research suggests.

By embedding a high-pitched “cry” into the low tones of a purr, cats are able to subtly trigger a sense of urgency in people. The resultant “feed me” purr sounds both pleasant and plaintive — an irresistible combination for most devoted owners.

The team behind the study say that cats may be exploiting people’s innate tendency to nurture offspring. “The embedding of a cry within a call that we normally associate with contentment is quite a subtle means of eliciting a response — and solicitation purring is probably more acceptable to humans than overt meowing,” said Karen McComb, a biologist at the University of Sussex, who led the study.

Dr McComb was inspired to carry out the work after noticing that her own cat, Pepo, had the knack of waking her every morning with insistent purring. “I wondered why this purring sounded so annoying and was so difficult to ignore,” she said. After discussing the behaviour with other cat owners, she realised that she was not alone in being coaxed into submission.

The study, details of which are published tomorrow in the journal Current Biology, tested people’s responses to different types of purr and found that purrs recorded while cats were actively seeking food were more urgent and less pleasant for people than non-solicitation purrs played at the same volume.

When the high-pitched element was digitally removed from the solicitation purr, leaving other elements unchanged, the urgency ratings decreased significantly.

The study also found that not all cats use this type of purring. It appeared to be limited to cats with a one-on-one relationship with their owners. “In large households where there is a lot going on and such purring might get overlooked, meowing seems to be more common,” said Dr McComb.

Solicitation purring also appeared to be more common when cats were alone with their owners, and at antisocial times, such as first thing in the morning.

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