Thus our results could suggest that cats share some of the same features of positive signalling which have been found in a wide range of animals, including humans. It would be useful in future studies to explore the potential presence and function of this behaviour in conspecific communication as well as in cat—human signalling—and also consider its occurrence in enculturated or socialised, captive felids.
Our study used both owners and an unknown experimenter to deliver the slow blink stimulus. In doing this we found that both owners and an unfamiliar other could elicit a slow blink sequence in the cats. Differences in methodology possibly led to these differing results. One limitation of Experiment 1 was the presence of individual variation between owners in performing the slow blink stimulus, despite instructions having been provided.
Variation was also present in the slow blink displays given by the owners through inter-owner variability in a range of cues, including the extent to which they talked to the cat and in facial features such as whether they wore glasses. Also, as the cat was in the room in the control trials without the owner specifically interacting with it, there was variation in the distance between owner and cat here that we were unable to quantify.
This added noise to the data, making it potentially difficult to determine which signals the cats were responding to. In Experiment 2, we sought to overcome this by having an experimenter perform the facial stimuli across cats in order to standardize the presentations.
Variation in this is true to real-life interactions between owners and their cats and would be expected to add noise to the experiment—but also robustness—and would not systematically bias the results. However, it would be interesting and worthwhile to replicate the experiments in a lab setting. It could be argued that cats have developed slow blink behaviours because humans appear to perceive slow blinking as positive and cats may have previously been reinforced by their owners for responding to slow blink sequences.
Including an unfamiliar human therefore reduced such reinforcement effects, although the cats may still generalize across humans.
Further research on slow blinking behaviour in cats could consider whether this behaviour is an evolved trait or learnt over time. It is also possible that slow-blinking in cats originated as a mechanism to interrupt an unbroken stare, which is potentially threatening in social interactions 43 ; this could then have been elaborated by a combination of selection and learning in the domestic environment.
Understanding specific ways in which cats and humans may interact positively, such as through eye narrowing movements, can enhance public understanding of cats and feline welfare, particularly considering the close bond cats and humans share 48 , From the current study, the slow blink sequence appears to be an indicator of positive emotion in cats. In summary, our study provides the first systematic investigation of the role of slow blink behaviour in cat—human communication. We show that slow blink interactions appear to be a positive experience for cats, and may be an indicator of positive emotions.
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.
Socio-cognitive abilities of cats are an under-studied area, and future research on cat behaviours, such as slow blinking, could enhance our understanding of interspecific communication and the ways in which domestication has shaped the social behaviour of an ancestrally solitary species. Proops, L. Cross-modal individual recognition in domestic horses equus caballus extends to familiar humans.
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Duchenne, G. And they do not need to, primarily because of the anatomy of their eyes, and in part, because blinking can be detrimental to hunting.
Unlike humans, cats do not need to blink to moisten their eyes. Furthermore, cats need every advantage when they are out on a hunt. Blinking their eyes for even a fraction of a second can mean losing prey.
To better understand why your cat does not blink that often and why he does not need to , it is a good idea to have some understanding of how his eyes work.
Cats rarely blink in the conventional sense. Rarely do felines blink in such a way that their upper and lower eyelids meet. Instead, cats squint instead of blink. And just like how humans automatically blink when they perceive something is about to enter their eyes, cats squint instead. One curious fact about cats is that they have a third eyelid, apart from the upper and lower eyelids. This third eyelid is called the nictitating membrane.
This thin membrane moves diagonally and moves faster than the other eyelids. Furthermore, when your cat is blinking with his third eyelid, the movement is almost imperceptible, especially if you do not know exactly what you should be looking for. Your cat uses his eyelids in a variety of ways. For starters, cats do not use their eyelids to spread moisture in their eyes as people do. Although their eyes have tear glands that are located in the corners, cats do not need to blink to move tears.
Instead, tears evaporate once the debris has been removed. If you look back at the origin of the domestic cat, you will see that he evolved from African wildcats that lived in dry areas. These locations were surrounded by sand which is often blown by winds. It is possible that cats evolved to develop this third eyelid to protect their eyes from bits of sand that can enter their eyes.
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