‘Cat whisperers’ can read feline faces

Have you ever looked at your cat and wondered what they’re thinking? Unlike dogs, cats can be hard to read. Some pet owners may wonder if their feline friends even have facial expressions. However, a recent study conducted at a Canadian university found that cats do indeed have facial expressions, but only about 13 percent of people can consistently read them.

Watching cat videos for science
To conduct the study, researchers collected 40 short cat videos from the internet. Twenty showed cats that were content and 20 featured cats that were distressed. The researchers used the context of the video and any included commentary to discern the feline’s mood.

With these videos, the researchers created an internet poll. More than 6,000 people from 85 countries responded to it, watching between two and 20 videos each. Viewers were asked whether they thought the cat on the screen was content or distressed. On average, the respondents were correct 11.85 times out of 20, a result that’s only slightly higher than chance.

However, there were outliers. Thirteen percent of people were particularly good at reading cat expressions, getting at least 15 out of 20 correct. Dubbed “cat whisperers” by the researchers, these people tended to be young, female veterinary professionals.

So what does this mean for cat owners? Researchers hope to figure out what makes cat whisperers good at reading feline facial cues. From there, they hope to teach others how to decode feline faces.