Try “Wink Slowly” Get Closer to Your Pet Cat

Do you have pets? Since cats love to stay at home and also use Cat litter, many busy workers like to keep cats. The latest research shows that slowly winking can bring you closer to your cat.

(Photo via Pixabay.com)

UK, East Sussex (Merxwire) – Many owners want to communicate with their pets and are curious about their pet’s mood. Compared with dogs, cats have fewer expressions and elusive emotions. If you have ever spent time with cats, you may have seen the cat’s slow wink expression, which looks like a person smiling. The cat’s slowly wink expression also often appears in moments of relaxation and satisfaction, so it is also interpreted as “cat smile.”

Many owners believe that copying this expression can show friendliness to the cat. To confirm this interpretation, the University of Sussex team designed two experiments to confirm the cat’s response to slow wink.

Experiment 1: The researchers conducted experiments on 14 households with cats, and a total of 21 cats were tested. When the cat was resting somewhere in the house, the owner was asked to sit one meter away and blink slowly when the cat looked at them. The camera records the expressions of the owner and the cat and compares the slow wink with the daily blinking. The results show that after the owner wink the cat slowly, the cat often winks slowly in response to the owner.

(Photo via Pixabay.com)

Experiment 2: Researchers conducted experiments on 8 households with cats, and a total of 24 cats were tested. The process is roughly the same as the first experiment, but this time it is not the owner who winks slowly, but the researcher who is new to the house cat wink slowly. The results show that researchers without slow wink are not easy to approach cats. Researchers with slow wink get a response from cats more often and are more likely to get close to cats.

“I have cats in my own home, and I am glad to be able to prove the usefulness of slow wink in communication through animal behavior.” Psychologist Karen McComb said.

If you also have a cat, try to wink slowly; there may be surprises! It is very exciting to find evidence of wink and cat communication. In addition to increasing the public’s understanding of cats, this research may also be used to evaluate cats’ medical treatment and shelter in the future.

The research was published in Scientific Reports: The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat–human communication