Pet parents are used to seeing weird cat behavior. (Running from one end of the room to the other for no reason? Check.) But what about not-so-common behaviors, such as the cat slow blink? And why do cats blink so slowly? What does this movement reveal about their thoughts?
What Does the Cat Slow Blink Mean?
As theorized by animal behavior experts, the slow blink is how a cat tells her human family that she feels safe. According to The Cut's interview with veterinarian Gary Weitzman, author of How to Speak Cat: A Guide to Decoding Cat Language: "The slow blink really is an acceptance gesture. [Cats] do that when they're absolutely comfortable with you."
If you've ever had a cat gaze lovingly into you eyes and blink slowly, consider yourself lucky. Although it may seem like an ominous gesture, slow blinking is cat code for "You are my entire world!"
Think of the cat slow blink as the "butterfly kiss" of the cat world. While humans gently flutter their eyelashes against someone else's cheek to communicate their love, cats delicately flutter their eyelashes at their people. Cat friends will even slow blink at each other as if to say "We're cool."
Why Do Cats Slow Blink?
It's a persistent myth that kitties don't show their affection for people, despite the millions of cat stories, videos and photographs that prove otherwise. While it's true that some cats may not be as outwardly affectionate as other companion animals, they can be quite expressive. You just have to know what to look for and how to read a cat's body language. Kneading, for instance, is a common way that cats show their love. Now you can add the slow blink to the list.
The cat slow blink is just one of the more subtle ways your kitty says, "I love you," and it's a gesture that you can return. "Cat returns your blink" made it onto Best Friends Animal Society's list of relaxed or curious body language cues.
The Science of Feline Facial Expressions
More and more scientists are on the case, too. For example, research published in The Journal of Physiology notes that cat slow blinking, when both the closing and the opening of the eyelid happen at a slow pace, differs from the velocity of a typical cat blink, when the closing of the eyelid is rapid but the opening is slow. This observation is noteworthy because it shows that slow blinking is not a reflexive movement — it's an intentional behavior. This research is an exciting step toward answering the question "Why do cats slow blink?"
In an article published by the American Association of Feline Practitioners, licensed veterinarian technician Ellen M. Carozza writes that with the pets she sees in an office setting, the "confident happy cat" is the one who might slow blink and expect you to blink in return. It may seem mysterious, but the cat slow blink is just one of the many things your cat will do to get your attention.
So even though you'll lose a staring contest with your cat every time, the two of you can have a "blink off" to show how much you love and trust each other. There's more than one way to say "I love you" to your feline friend!
Cats have a reputation for standoffishness, especially compared with dogs, but if you find your feline friend a little hard to bond with, maybe you're just not speaking their language.
Never fear - new research has shown that it's not so difficult. You just need to smile at them more.
Not the human way, by baring your teeth, but the cat way, by narrowing your eyes, and blinking slowly. By observing cat-human interactions, scientists were able to confirm that this expression makes cats - both familiar and strange - approach and be receptive to humans.
"As someone who has both studied animal behaviour and is a cat owner, it's great to be able to show that cats and humans can communicate in this way," said psychologist Karen McComb of the University of Sussex in the UK.
"It's something that many cat owners had already suspected, so it's exciting to have found evidence for it."
If you've spent any time around cats, you've probably seen their 'partially closed eyes' facial expression, accompanied by slow blinking. It's similar to how human eyes narrow when smiling, and usually occurs when puss is relaxed and content. The expression is interpreted as a kind of cat smile.
Anecdotal evidence from cat owners has hinted that humans can copy this expression to communicate to cats that we are friendly and open to interaction. So, a team of psychologists designed two experiments to determine whether cats behaved differently towards slow-blinking humans.
In the first experiment, owners slow-blinked at 21 cats from 14 different households. Once the cat was settled and comfy in one spot in their home environment, the owners were instructed to sit about a metre away and slow-blink when the cat was looking at them. Cameras recorded both the owner's face and the cat's face, and the results were compared to how cats blink with no human interaction.
The results showed that cats are more likely to slow-blink at their humans after their humans have slow-blinked at them, compared to the no-interaction condition.
The second experiment included 24 cats from eight different households. This time, it wasn't the owners doing the blinking but the researchers, who'd had no prior contact with the cat. For a control, the cats were recorded responding to a no-blink condition, in which humans stared at the cats without blinking their eyes.
The researchers performed the same slow-blink process as the first experiment, adding an extended hand towards the cat. And they found that not only were the cats more likely to blink back, but that they were more likely to approach the human's hand after the human had blinked.
"This study is the first to experimentally investigate the role of slow blinking in cat-human communication," McComb said.
"And it is something you can try yourself with your own cat at home, or with cats you meet in the street. It's a great way of enhancing the bond you have with cats. Try narrowing your eyes at them as you would in a relaxed smile, followed by closing your eyes for a couple of seconds. You'll find they respond in the same way themselves and you can start a sort of conversation."
Dogs may be a lot more enthusiastically demonstrative than cats, but for cat lovers, this news won't come as a surprise. Research in recent years has shown that our feline friends are a lot more in tune with their human housemates than previously supposed, and that comparing them to dogs is a disservice.
Cats, for example, respond in kind to humans who are receptive to them - so if you find cats standoffish, that might be a problem with you, not the kitty. Likewise, cats echo the personality traits of the humans they live with - this may be related to why cats seem to pick up when their humans are sad. They also can recognise their names (although they choose to ignore them a lot of the time). And their bonds with their humans are surprisingly deep.
It's difficult to know why cats slow-blink at humans this way. It's been interpreted as a means of signalling benign intentions, since cats are thought to interpret unbroken staring as threatening. But it's also possible that cats developed the expression since humans respond positively to it. With domesticated animals, it's often impossible to tell.
Either way, it does seem to help forge a rapport. And that's a good thing to know. Learning how to improve our relationships with these enigmatic animals could also be a way to improve their emotional health - not just in the home environment, but across a range of potentially stressful situations.
"Understanding positive ways in which cats and humans interact can enhance public understanding of cats, improve feline welfare, and tell us more about the socio-cognitive abilities of this under-studied species," said psychologist Tasmin Humphrey of the University of Sussex.
"Our findings could potentially be used to assess the welfare of cats in a variety of settings, including veterinary practices and shelters."
You're going to go try it right now, aren't you?
The research has been published in Scientific Reports.
Whether they’re kneading our flesh like bread or following us into the bathroom, cats are always trying to tell their humans something — most of it involving food. But an animal behaviorist tells Inverse one familiar behavior cats exhibit could be a true sign of affection.
It’s often been rumored that a cat’s “slow blink” is its way of saying, “I love you.” It’s even been called a “cat kiss”! The truth is, we’ll never truly know what’s going on inside a kitty’s brain, but there’s evidence to suggest a cat slowly winking at its human means it trusts its companion.
“Cats will typically avoid eye contact when afraid or threatened; when they are being offensively aggressive, they will stare (and staring at them is perceived as a threat),” Mikel Delgado, a cat researcher the University of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, tells Inverse. “The slow blink is a demonstration of eye contact without staring, and we interpret this behavior as a sign of relaxation and trust. Some might call that love.”
Miso curled up with her happy toy.Laura Casing
Think of it this way: If a cat closes its eyes around like it’s falling asleep, it’s signaling that it doesn’t view you as a threat. This is similar to the way some cats expose their bellies to their humans, which signals trust and vulnerability. For kitties, the absence of extreme hatred is love, and as cat owners know, there is no in between.
“I have always heard that the “slow blink” is a sign of love, and I try to do it right back,” Clea Simon, author of The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection Between Women and Cats tells Inverse.
While it’s tempting to stare into your cat’s bulbous eyes, experts warn this could be interpreted as a sign of aggression. Instead, try and give your cat a slow blink every once in a while and see if he or she returns it. If your cat doesn’t blink back, this doesn’t mean they despise you — maybe they just have a different way of expressing appreciation.
“I always recommend to a person that they look for a blink from the cat and then slowly extend a finger out toward the cat and allow her to sniff,” veterinary behaviorist Wailani Sung writes in VetStreet. “If the cat is receptive to more interactions with that person, she will sniff the finger and may try to rub her face on the finger or lower her head for attention. If the cat backs away or bats at the finger, it is a clear sign the kitty does not want any physical interactions with the person.”
Cats, capricious as they may be, never run out of ways to show humans they actually care about us. Though their definition of love vaguely translates to “I don’t wish to murder you at this particular moment,” it’s love nonetheless.