According to a new study, blinking slowly at your cat may be the key to winning its feline heart.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Sussex and published in the journal Scientific Reports, sought to explain how the “Duchenne smile,” which is basically smiling with crescent-shaped eyes, can convey love and trust to cats.
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In the research, they recruited 18 cats from 14 different owners to observe their reactions to their owners’ blinking. The study was conducted at home for the cats’ comfort.
The researchers trained the owners to perform the slow blinking sequence, “a series of half blinks followed by a prolonged narrowing or closing of the eyes.” The closing of the eyes at the end had to last at least 0.5 seconds.
In the control condition, the owners were in the same room as their cats but did not interact with them. The cats’ responses were coded using the cats’ FACS, an anatomy-based system designed to objectively measure facial actions based on their underlying muscle movements.
As a result, the researchers found that cats blinked slowly more when their owners blinked slowly at them than when they did not interact with them.
In the second part of the study, the researchers sought to understand whether the cats’ responses generalized to strangers (i.e., the experimenters) and whether slow blinking would attract cats to them.
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The second stage included 18 new cats from 8 different owners and was conducted again in the cats’ homes. To track approach behaviors, the researchers sat or crouched and extended their hand to the cat. They performed the slow blinking sequence or displayed a neutral expression without eye contact.
The findings were that, again, cats were more likely to blink at strangers who blinked at them than at strangers who showed no expression or eye contact. Moreover, in this condition, cats were also more likely to approach strangers. Overall, cats showed approximately 5% more approach responses in the blinking condition as opposed to the neutral condition.
In summary, the study was the first to empirically demonstrate that blinking is a positive form of communication for cats and that blinking can make a cat approach a stranger.
