Are You A Cat Whisperer?
While dogs openly demonstrate joy or displeasure through grins and grimaces, discerning a cat's emotions from its face is often hard, even for its owners. Now, researchers from Canada's University of Guelph assert that stoic as they may appear, cats also express emotions on their faces — one just has to learn how to interpret them!
For their study, Professors Lee Niel and Georgia Mason recruited 6,300 people from 85 countries. The participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire and watch 20 short cat videos, obtained mostly from YouTube. Each clip highlighted just the cat’s face — its eyes, muzzle, and mouth — and gave no clues to its surroundings or circumstances. The viewers did not have to determine the cat's exact emotion, but just decide whether it was in a positive state, a negative state, or if they were unsure.
The researchers, who published their findings in the November 2019 issue of Animal Welfare, found that only 13 percent, or 819 participants, were able to read the cats' emotions accurately over 75 percent of the time. Further research showed that the so-called "cat whisperers" were primarily women and veterinarians or vet technicians. Younger adults also seemed to be able to read the expressions better than older individuals.
"The fact that women generally scored better than men is consistent with previous research that has shown that women appear to be better at decoding non-verbal displays of emotion, both in humans and dogs," said Mason. Surprisingly, being a cat owner did not help study participants, indicating that a strong attachment to the animal did not necessarily mean better understanding of its emotions.
Fortunately, all is not lost for cat owners who are unable to tell their pet's moods. The researchers believe the skills are not innate but learned over time, which explains why veterinary staff scored high in the study. "This is important to be able to do because it could help strengthen the bond between owners and cats, and so improve cat care and welfare," said Niel.
To find out if you have what it takes to be a "cat whisperer," take the fun, interactive catfaces quiz created by the study's researchers.
Resources: catdogwelfare.wixsite.com
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570 Comments
cystalsWednesday, May 12, 2021 at 6:04 amO.m.g. that is CRAZY
7sushigirl7Monday, May 10, 2021 at 12:49 pmi am very much a cat whisperer i know what they want almost everytime!!
sunshineavaFriday, April 23, 2021 at 4:10 pmIs your kittens born yet🤔- sunshineavaFriday, April 23, 2021 at 4:08 pmI'm the cat whispered🐱🐈
- 7sushigirl7Tuesday, April 20, 2021 at 8:39 amI am a cat whisperer bcuz once there was a sleeping cat it woke up and hissed at me then it let me pet it and purred
nightwavesThursday, April 15, 2021 at 10:14 amCool!
mh249006Monday, April 5, 2021 at 12:17 pm❤️ Cats. My cat is so CUTE! My mom is allergic to cats, so we keep our cat outside. Also my cat is about to have babies!
candykittenThursday, April 15, 2021 at 3:57 pmYAY! Tell the kittens hi for me!
unicornpuppy10Thursday, April 15, 2021 at 2:30 pmaww im allergic to cats too i don't even have a cat its sad i want one sooooo bad
lexi1010Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 1:15 pmI have a cat named White Paws but i call him steve we have to give him to my grandma because he keeps peeing on the walls and my mom thinks its those bug tubes and he does not like the smell but i don't know guys tell me why he keeps peeing on the walls!???!!!!
mary_jane77Wednesday, March 31, 2021 at 4:48 amI love cats omg
haleybugjjFriday, March 26, 2021 at 6:21 amthis really warmed m heart im in love with cats