I don’t believe this. Our cats will watch a cat on TV, but not a human. Our cats act differently to my wife and I than they do each other.
So here is an article about the book that discusses this:
Please note that I did not mean to imply cats do not know us from them. What I was trying to convey is that they treat us like they would treat a [giant] cat (discussed in the article).
Cats are individuals and treat each other differently, they know one cat from the other and they can distinguish each member of the household as they do different things with each of us; however, what they do with us, with the exception of meowing, are things they would do with other cats... i.e. they will snuggle, try to groom us, head butt us, show us their butts, expose their bellies or hiss at us in the same way they would to other cats