Well, at least cognitive scientists have discovered a more effective way to communicate with your cat
Good news, cat lovers and childless cat ladies. While several facets of women’s health continue to remain a murky mystery, scientists are closer to answering another essential question: How to best communicate with your cat. Cats are known to blink slowly, but tragically, very little work has been done to examine how cats will respond to humans doing a slow blink. However, a paper published by Scientific Reports may help put this question to rest. How the study was conducted Researchers conducted two sets of experiments with cats and their owners. The first tested whether cats would respond to a slow blink. The second tested if cats would be more likely to approach a stranger after they initiated a slow-blink sequence. In the first, which included 14 owners and 21 cats, owners were asked to slowly blink their eyes at their cats after their cat made direct eye contact or to maintain a neutral expression. In the second experiment, which involved 24 cats, a researcher slow-blinked at a cat or maintained a neutral expression. What the researchers found The researchers found in the first experiment that cats were more likely to respond to their owners slow-blinking with their own blinking sequence. In the second experiment, when the cats were presented with a stranger (the researcher), the cats were more likely to approach the researcher after a slow blink exchange than when the researcher had a neutral expression. “We show that slow blink interactions appear to be a positive experience for cats, and may be an indicator of positive emotions,” the researchers wrote. “Such findings could potentially be used to assess the welfare of cats in a variety of settings, including veterinary practices and shelter environments as well as enhancing cat–human communication in the human home.” While the future of our country may be up in the air at the moment, at least we can take comfort in the fact we’ll be able to communicate better with our cats. Perhaps, in time, with further studies we’ll understand what they’re thinking, and who knows? They may have sage advice for surviving troubled times.
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Good news, cat lovers and childless cat ladies. While several facets of women’s health continue to remain a murky mystery, scientists are closer to answering another essential question: How to best communicate with your cat.
Cats are known to blink slowly, but tragically, very little work has been done to examine how cats will respond to humans doing a slow blink. However, a paper published by Scientific Reports may help put this question to rest.
How the study was conducted
Researchers conducted two sets of experiments with cats and their owners. The first tested whether cats would respond to a slow blink. The second tested if cats would be more likely to approach a stranger after they initiated a slow-blink sequence.
In the first, which included 14 owners and 21 cats, owners were asked to slowly blink their eyes at their cats after their cat made direct eye contact or to maintain a neutral expression. In the second experiment, which involved 24 cats, a researcher slow-blinked at a cat or maintained a neutral expression.
What the researchers found
The researchers found in the first experiment that cats were more likely to respond to their owners slow-blinking with their own blinking sequence. In the second experiment, when the cats were presented with a stranger (the researcher), the cats were more likely to approach the researcher after a slow blink exchange than when the researcher had a neutral expression.
“We show that slow blink interactions appear to be a positive experience for cats, and may be an indicator of positive emotions,” the researchers wrote. “Such findings could potentially be used to assess the welfare of cats in a variety of settings, including veterinary practices and shelter environments as well as enhancing cat–human communication in the human home.”
While the future of our country may be up in the air at the moment, at least we can take comfort in the fact we’ll be able to communicate better with our cats. Perhaps, in time, with further studies we’ll understand what they’re thinking, and who knows? They may have sage advice for surviving troubled times.
