A study that observed cats living in a cat cafe revealed that cats have 276 different facial expressions.
Cats are loved as pets by people all over the world, and many people are obsessed with the cute expressions that cats sometimes show. A new study that observed 53 cats living at a cat cafe in Los Angeles, USA, revealed that cats have 276 different facial expressions.
Feline Faces: Unraveling the Social Function of Domestic Cat Facial Signals - ScienceDirect
Cats have nearly 300 facial expressions | Science | AAAS
https://www.science.org/content/article/cats-have-nearly-300-facial-expressions
Cats have nearly 300 facial expressions, including a 'play face' they share with humans | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/animals/cats/cats-have-nearly-300-facial-expressions-including-a-play-face-they-share-with-humans
Humans are not the only ones who make facial expressions to express their emotions and communicate; previous research has shown that chimpanzees have 357 different facial expressions, and dogs have 27 unique facial expressions. It is known that various facial expressions are created by combining the movements of However, Brittany Frokiewicz, an evolutionary psychologist at Lyon College , pointed out that there was a lack of research on cat facial expressions. 'The literature on cat facial expressions is sparse, and much of it focuses on the relationship between cats and humans over 10,000 years of domestication,' says Frokiewicz.
So, in 2021, when the two were students at the University of California, Los Angeles, a research team led by Lauren Scott, a medical student at the University of Kansas and a self-described cat lover, and Frokiewicz established a website run by a non-profit organization. We conducted a study to observe the facial expressions of 53 cats living in a cat cafe called 'CatCafé Lounge .' This cat cafe is home to 53 cats looking for foster parents, and human visitors can look for foster cats and do yoga while interacting with the cats.
The research team recorded a total of 194 minutes of video footage of the cats' behavior after the cat cafe closed and the customers disappeared. Frokiewicz then analyzed facial expressions by encoding all facial muscle movements, except for those related to physiological phenomena such as breathing, chewing, and yawning.
As a result of the analysis, cats ``open their lips,'' ``open/contract their pupils,'' ``blink,'' ``raise the corner of their mouth,'' ``lick their nose,'' ``move the position of their ears,'' and ``extend/retract their whiskers.''26 It was discovered that each individual's unique facial movements were combined to create a total of 276 different facial expressions.
The research team also investigated the situations in which each facial expression appears. They found that 45% of the facial expressions were ``obviously friendly,'' 37% were ``obviously aggressive,'' and the remaining 18% were classified as ambiguous and unreliable.
It is unclear exactly how cats communicated using these facial expressions. However, overall, they tended to move their ears and whiskers toward the other person during friendly interactions, and move them away during unfriendly interactions. They also tended to narrow their pupils and lick their lips when they met someone they were in a rivalry with. Interestingly, the friendly facial expressions shown by cats were also found to be similar in many species, including humans, monkeys, and dogs.
'We hope that animal shelters and animal rights groups can use our research to better assess the cats in their care,' Frokiewicz said. We have also received calls from companies who want to design for us.'
Related Posts:
