Some may argue that cats don't really show any emotions. Sure, they're more independent than other animals, such as dogs, but that doesn't mean that they are unable to form emotional attachments. And that doesn't mean that they don't feel. If you don't take it from us, take it from the findings of this new study (published in the scientific journal Behavioral Process in October 2023) that shows cats have nearly 300 facial expressions that they use to communicate with one another as well as display their moods.
In order to collect data for the study, researcher Lauren Scott of the University of Kansas Medical Center visited a Los Angeles cat cafe frequently over the span of a year. She recorded videos of interactions between 53 cats.
According to the study, all the fur babies were adult domestic shorthairs, both males and females. In total, she was able to gather 194 minutes of footage containing 186 interactions.
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With the help of evolutionary psychologist Brittany N. Florkiewicz, who coauthored the study, Lauren was able to analyze the signals of the cats' faces. In total, they discovered 276 expressions made up of 26 facial movements.
The facial movements were made up of shifts in ear position, blinks, nose licks and whisker and mouth movements. Of the expressions, 45% were deemed to be friendly, while 37% were deemed aggressive, and 18% were deemed ambiguous.
“These findings show it is good to look at a cat’s ears, eyes and whiskers to understand if they are feeling friendly,” Brittany shared. “Their mouth provides a lot of information about whether a cat fight is likely. People may think that cats’ facial expressions are all about warning other cats and people off, but this shows just how social and tolerant pet cats can actually be.”
Though the study gave insight into just how many expressions cats are able to make, the team wasn't able to decode exactly what each one means. According to Brittany, this could be explored in future studies.
There were some patterns that the researchers saw, such as that cats move their ears and whiskers toward one another during friendly interactions and away from each other during unfriendly ones. In response to hostility, they tended to narrow their pupils and flatten their ears.
“Our study demonstrates that cat communication is more complex than previously assumed,” Brittany said. “Our hope is to expand our sample size to include cats living in other locations … looking at the facial expressions of cats living in multi-cat homes, feral colonies.”
