Speak the Language of Cats: A Simple Trick for Communicating with Your Furry Pets

Cats have a reputation for being aloof and willful. science alert talks about the latest research that will help owners of furry animals speak their language.

Research from 2020 showed that it’s not that hard. You just have to smile at them more. Not like a human, showing your teeth, but like a cat, narrowing your eyes and blinking slowly.

Scientists have confirmed that this expression makes cats - both familiar and unfamiliar - approach and be more receptive to people.

"It's great to be able to show that cats and humans can communicate in this way," said Karen McComb, a psychologist at the University of Sussex. "It's something that many cat owners already suspected. It's exciting to find evidence of it."

Cat smile

If you've spent any time around cats, you've probably seen their "partially closed eyes" expression. It's accompanied by a slow blink. It's similar to how human eyes squint when they smile. It usually happens when cat relaxed and contented. This expression is interpreted as a kind of cat-like smile.

People may copy this expression to communicate to furry creatures that they are friendly and open to interaction. So psychologists designed two experiments. They wanted to determine whether cats differently in relation to people who blink slowly.

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In the first experiment, owners blinked slowly at 21 kitties from 14 different homes. The kitties were settled and comfortable in their home environment. Owners were instructed to sit about 1 meter away and blink slowly when the kitty looked at them. Cameras recorded the faces of both the owner and the kitty. The results were compared to how the kitties blinked without human interaction.

An experiment found that cats were more likely to slowly blink at their owners after their owners had slowly blinked at them.

The second experiment involved 24 cats from eight different homes. This time, it was not the owners who blinked, but the researchers, who had not previously interacted with the furry creatures. As a control, the cats' reactions to the no-blink condition, in which people looked at the cats without blinking, were recorded.

The researchers performed the same slow blinking process as in the first experiment, but added a hand extended toward the cat. As a result, the cats were not only more likely to blink back, but also more likely to approach the person's hand after the person blinked.

"This study is the first to experimentally examine the role of slow blinking in cat-human communication," McComb said.

"You can try this contact yourself with your pet at home or with cats you meet on the street. It's a great way to strengthen the existing connection with cats. Try squinting when you look at them, as if you were smiling relaxedly, and then close your eyes for a few seconds. You'll see that they respond the same way. After that, you can start a kind of dialogue," he suggested.

Strong connections

Research in recent years has shown that our feline friends are much more attuned to their housemates than previously thought.

For example, cats reciprocate affection with people who are receptive to them. If you find them standoffish, the problem may be with you, not them. Likewise, cats copy the personality traits of the people they share a home with. This explains why cats seem to notice when their owners are sad. They are able to recognize their owners' names (though they generally choose to ignore them). Cats' bonds with people are surprisingly deep.

It is difficult to understand why cats blink so slowly when looking at people. It is interpreted as a way of expressing good intentions. However, it is believed that cats perceive continuous staring as a threat. With domestic animals, it is often difficult to tell for sure. In any case, it is useful to know that it helps to establish contact.

Learning how to improve our relationships with these enigmatic animals can improve their emotional health, not only in the home environment but also in a number of potentially stressful situations.

"Understanding the positive ways cats and humans interact will ultimately improve feline welfare and may tell us more about the social-cognitive abilities of this poorly understood species," said psychologist Tasmin Humphrey from the University of Sussex.

"Our findings could potentially be used to assess the welfare of cats in a variety of settings, such as veterinary clinics and shelters," she said.