As cat owners, we always try to understand our little kitties in various ways. For example, we observe their tails, facial expressions, and body movements to gauge their emotions. In fact, cats do the same thing—they secretly pick up on our feelings too…
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Cats Can Perceive Human Emotions
Many cat owners have experienced this themselves, especially during moments of sadness. When you’re feeling down, having a sweet, fluffy kitty by your side, snuggling and giving them a little kiss or hug can instantly lift your spirits… But how does that little kitty know you’re not feeling happy? In fact, back in 2015, a research team from the University of Auckland found that cats can recognize human facial expressions associated with both positive and negative emotions. Then, in 2020, researchers from the University of Bari in Italy extended this study to sound, discovering that cats can identify human voices expressing happiness or anger and associate those sounds with corresponding facial expressions. But these two studies mainly relied on the cat’s visual and auditory senses—what about their highly sensitive sense of smell? Can it also help them detect emotions?
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Here Comes the Sniff Test!
The research team from the University of Bari conducted a fascinating experiment to explore whether cats could sense human emotions through smell alone, considering their heightened sensitivity to odor signals. For this experiment, 22 cats (10 male and 12 female), ranging from 7 months to 11 years old, participated. The experiment involved collecting sweat from the armpits of three male volunteers under different emotional states:Neutral (neither happy nor sad): Collected in the morning after the volunteers showered.Physical Stress: Collected after a 15-minute jog.Happiness: Collected after watching 15 minutes of a happy video.Fear: Collected after watching 15 minutes of a scary video.To control for variables, the volunteers had to adhere to strict dietary standards during the experiment, avoiding fragrant products like perfume and scented body wash. The samples were collected by swiping cotton swabs under the volunteers’ armpits, then immediately freezing them at -20°C. The swabs were thawed before testing. To minimize environmental influences, the experiments were conducted in the cats’ homes, with each test being done by the researchers at the same time of day over a span of four days. During the experiment, the cotton swabs were placed under a camera and given to the cats in random order. Another camera recorded the process, and the videos were analyzed to observe the cats’ behaviors in response to different emotional scents.The results showed that, compared to the other three emotions, cats exhibited more stress-related behaviors when sniffing the “fear” scent swab. These behaviors included retreating, quickly leaving, and crouching. Interestingly, these stress responses were consistent regardless of the order in which the samples were presented. This led the researchers to suggest that cats can indeed perceive emotions through human body odor and adjust their behavior accordingly. Additionally, an interesting observation was made: when cats were under more stress, they tended to favor sniffing with their right nostril. The researchers believe this is related to the right hemisphere of the brain, which is responsible for emotional arousal and stimulation, a phenomenon also observed in other animals like dogs, goats, and cows.
From this, we can see that it’s not just their vision and hearing—cats can also detect our emotions through their sense of smell! Moreover, previous experiments have shown that cats are more likely to stay close to owners with positive emotions. So, for the sake of our kitties, we should live happily too!
