How to make friends with a cat? Squint your eyes and blink

Squinting or blinking slowly can help make friends with cats. The experiment that proves it

Squinting or blinking slowly can help make friends with cats. In fact, these gestures are positively interpreted by felines and correspond to the genuine smile of human beings.

Non-verbal communication therefore seems to have a leading role in the human-cat relationship. This is confirmed by a new study conducted by psychologists at the University of Portsmouth and the University of Sussex, according to which facial expressions communicate more than we imagine, even to animals.

The new study, published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, showed for the first time that it is possible to build a relationship with a cat using an eye narrowing technique. In other words, you need to look them in the eye, slowly squint and blink, a real slow blink. Such gestures seem to make men more attractive to such animals. The narrowing movements of the eyes in cats have some parallels to the genuine smile in humans, the so-called Duchenne smile, the most genuine and sincere that can exist.

Dr Leanne Proops of the Department of Psychology at the University of Portsmouth explained:

"It is certainly not easy to study the natural behavior of the cat, so these results provide a rare insight into the world of cat-human communication."

The team, led by Dr Tasmin Humphrey and Professor Karen McComb, undertook two experiments. The first involved 21 cats from 14 different families and revealed that cats are more likely to blink slowly at their 14 owners after they have looked at them slowly than when they did not interact with them at all.

The second experiment instead involved a researcher from the team of psychologists, not the owner and 24 cats, 12 males and as many females, with an estimated age between 1 and 17 years, coming from 8 different families. The researcher, who was unfamiliar with the cat, would either blink slowly or adopt a neutral face with no direct eye contact. This experiment also tested the context in which cats preferred to approach the unfamiliar experimenter by offering the cat a flat hand with the palm facing up while he was sitting or crouching directly in front of the animal.

In this case, it was found that cats were more likely to approach the experimenter's outstretched hand after the man had slowly blinked the cat's eyelids than when he adopted a neutral expression. Overall, the study shows that this blinking technique can be a form of positive communication between cats and humans.

“Being both a person who has studied animal behavior and the owner of a cat, it's great to be able to demonstrate we can communicate in this way. It's something that many cat owners have already guessed, so it's exciting to have found evidence, ”said prof. Karen McComb, of the School of Psychology at the University of Sussex. “This study is the first to experimentally investigate the role of slow blinking in cat-human communication. And it's something you can try yourself with your cat at home or with the cats you meet on the street. It's a great way to improve the bond you have with cats. "

Try it too

Approach your cat and narrow your eyes as you would to produce a relaxed smile, then close your eyes for a couple of seconds and open them again. Cats will respond the same way.

“Understanding positive ways in which cats and humans interact can improve understanding, improve feline well-being and tell us more about the socio-cognitive abilities of this little-studied species. Our findings could potentially be used to assess the welfare of cats in a variety of settings, including veterinary practices and shelters, ”concluded Dr. Tasmin Humphrey, first author of the study.

Wonderful felines, they will never cease to amaze us!

Sources of reference: Portsmouth University, Nature