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The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat–human communication (2020)

nature.com

11–20 of 89 posts

Re: The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat–human communication (2020)

#11
post #8

I do this all the time to my cats. Sometimes the cat will trill back like "oh, got it", which is about equal parts interesting and cute.

> Sometimes the cat will trill

Might be at maximum "P," especially if it was darting toward you immediately preceding this.

Next time try hanging some spinning pieces of catnip from your rafters to see if your cat can temporarily levitate in order to collect them.

Re: The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat–human communication (2020)

#12
post #8

I do this all the time to my cats. Sometimes the cat will trill back like "oh, got it", which is about equal parts interesting and cute.

My cat does this too! There is a "got it" flavored affirmative trill, and also a "come on!" flavored frustrated trill.

Re: The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat–human communication (2020)

#14
> Cat’s eye movements were coded using actions defined in CatFACS, an anatomically based system designed to objectively measure facial actions based on their underlying muscle movements.

Whoever named this system was clearly aware of the meme. I'd like to remain subscribed to CatFACS, please!

Re: The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat–human communication (2020)

#15
post #8

I do this all the time to my cats. Sometimes the cat will trill back like "oh, got it", which is about equal parts interesting and cute.

> Sometimes the cat will trill Might be at maximum "P," especially if it was darting toward you immediately preceding this. Next time try hanging some spinning pieces of catnip from your rafters to see if your cat can temporarily levitate in order to collect them.

What?

Re: The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat–human communication (2020)

#16
I think the cat's slow blink is functionally related to a human smile, which when truly felt, also causes the eyes to close and then open slowly.

I've noticed that my two Siamese cats often combine the slow blink with either a bowing of the head or lifting of the chin. They also very often yawn while making eye contact when my wife or I enter the room.

Re: The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat–human communication (2020)

#18
post #8

I do this all the time to my cats. Sometimes the cat will trill back like "oh, got it", which is about equal parts interesting and cute.

My cat does this too! There is a "got it" flavored affirmative trill, and also a "come on!" flavored frustrated trill.

There's also the "you touched me" trill. Also the "oh, hai!" trill.

Re: The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat–human communication (2020)

#20

Friendly cats often look sort of sleepy to me, maybe because they do this slow blink sequence when I look at them?

sometimes they are just sleepy but they are only sleepy like that when they are comfortable around you and don't see you as threat.
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