If a cat looks deeply into a person’s eyes and blinks slowly, this is a very good sign. It is a friendly contact and means that the animal feels comfortable around this person. Winking back is highly recommended. This signals affection back to the animal. This is what a study from the University of Sussex and Portsmouth says.
Now there is a new study from the USA: the lead author is the US scientist Laura Scott, a medical student at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Together with their co-author Brittany Florkiewicz, an evolutionary biologist at Lyon College in Arkansas, the scientists wanted to find out more about facial expressions in cats. The researchers published the results of their study in the specialist journal “Behavioral Processes”.
“Our study shows that communication in cats is more complex than previously thought,” says Florkiewicz in an interview with the news channel CNN. For the analysis, a total of 53 adult short-haired cats were filmed in a cat café between August 2021 and June 2022. There were among the animals both male and female cats, all of which were neutered. Florkiewicz explained that domesticated cats are more socialized and tolerant than wild cats due to their proximity to humans. Therefore, the researchers expected to discover both positive and negative expressions in the animals Ultimately, they were very surprised that they were able to count a total of 276 different facial expressions while evaluating the film material. The scientists discovered 45.7 percent positive and 37 percent aggressive expressions on the animals.
In another study, Scott and Florkiewicz want to find out what meaning facial expressions have.
Sources: University of Sussex, Behavioral Processes, CNN
