The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat–human communication (2020)
4 hours ago
- Domestic cats engage in 'slow blink sequences' involving half-blinks and eye narrowing, which may serve as positive emotional communication with humans.
- Experiment 1 showed cats produced more eye narrowing and half-blinks when their owners performed slow blink stimuli, compared to no human interaction.
- Experiment 2 found cats responded with more eye narrowing and half-blinks to an unfamiliar experimenter's slow blink stimulus than to a neutral expression.
- Cats were significantly more likely to approach the experimenter after a slow blink interaction, suggesting the behavior is perceived positively.
- The study used CatFACS to code facial movements and controlled for confounding factors like age, sex, and household cat count.
- These findings indicate slow blinking may be an indicator of positive emotion in cats and could enhance cat-human communication and welfare assessment.