Are You A Cat Whisperer?
Language
Reading Level
Listen to Article
While dogs openly demonstrate joy or displeasure through grins and grimaces, discerning a cat's emotions from its face is often hard, even for its owners. Now, researchers from Canada's University of Guelph assert that stoic as they may appear, cats also express emotions on their faces — one just has to learn how to interpret them!
For their study, Professors Lee Niel and Georgia Mason recruited 6,300 people from 85 countries. The participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire and watch 20 short cat videos, obtained mostly from YouTube. Each clip highlighted just the cat’s face — its eyes, muzzle, and mouth — and gave no clues to its surroundings or circumstances. The viewers did not have to determine the cat's exact emotion, but just decide whether it was in a positive state, a negative state, or if they were unsure.
The researchers, who published their findings in the November 2019 issue of Animal Welfare, found that only 13 percent, or 819 participants, were able to read the cats' emotions accurately over 75 percent of the time. Further research showed that the so-called "cat whisperers" were primarily women and veterinarians or vet technicians. Younger adults also seemed to be able to read the expressions better than older individuals.
"The fact that women generally scored better than men is consistent with previous research that has shown that women appear to be better at decoding non-verbal displays of emotion, both in humans and dogs," said Mason. Surprisingly, being a cat owner did not help study participants, indicating that a strong attachment to the animal did not necessarily mean better understanding of its emotions.
Fortunately, all is not lost for cat owners who are unable to tell their pet's moods. The researchers believe the skills are not innate but learned over time, which explains why veterinary staff scored high in the study. "This is important to be able to do because it could help strengthen the bond between owners and cats, and so improve cat care and welfare," said Niel.
To find out if you have what it takes to be a "cat whisperer," take the fun, interactive catfaces quiz created by the study's researchers.
Resources: catdogwelfare.wixsite.com
Get the Workbook for this article!
Workbook contains: Article, Reading Comprehension, Critical Thinking Questions, Vocabulary in Context (+ answers), Multiple Choice Quiz (+ answers), Parts of Speech Quiz (+ answers), Vocabulary Game (+ answers)Cite Article
Learn Keywords in this Article
684 Comments
oliviaplayzover 2 yearsThey are adorable!
wolfygirl999over 2 yearsThose cats are so cute!- oliviaplayzover 2 yearsThey look adorable!
dihibodazobyalmost 3 yearsI love this article I used to have a cat and it was a new born I was so little that time and m cat died because he had bugs inside of his body.
aloveblyover 2 yearssorry so sad
undertailalmost 3 years🐈🐈 I love cats so much... if only deltarune had them (other than the robot ones, called tasques)
golden_kittyalmost 3 yearsI am Both Dog and Cat Whisperer
hewoilikenewzalmost 3 yearsI have a calico. I can read her emotions.- wolfieboy09almost 3 yearsCats are the best. Dog = lots to take care of
imsinglealmost 3 yearsI have 2 cats, and I can tell when my cat (dexy) is sad, angry, happy, or any other emotions, one way to tell is by their meows.
latewevi-163550859456about 3 yearsmy mom says im a cat whisperer idk why though
