But don't show your teeth: a psychologist has revealed a simple trick for communicating with a cat

It is a well-known fact that cats are reclusive. They can accept the love of their owners, but they don't often give it. However, psychologist Karen McComb has revealed a simple trick that will help you establish communication with your furry friend.

The author of the study claims that you just need to smile at them more. Not in a human way, showing your teeth, but in a feline way, squinting your eyes and blinking slowly, Science Alert writes.

By observing the interaction between a cat and a human, scientists confirmed that this facial expression makes cats, both familiar and unfamiliar, approach people and be more receptive to them.

"As a person who has studied animal behavior and is a cat owner, I am pleased to be able to show that cats and humans can communicate in this way. This is something that many cat owners have already suspected, so it's exciting to find evidence of it," says the scientist.

If you've spent any time with cats, you've probably seen their partially closed eye facial expressions, which are accompanied by slow blinking - usually when the cat is relaxed and happy. It's similar to the way human eyes constrict when you smile. The expression is interpreted as a kind of feline smile. According to the researchers, humans can copy this expression to tell cats that they are friendly and open to interaction.

The team of psychologists designed two experiments to determine whether cats behave differently toward people who blink slowly.

In the first experiment, owners blinked slowly at 21 cats from 14 different households. Once the cat was settled and comfortable in one place in the home environment, the owners were asked to sit about 1 meter away and blink slowly when the cat looked at them. The cameras recorded the faces of the owner and the cat, and the results were compared to how cats blink without human interaction. The results showed that cats are more likely to blink slowly at people after people blink slowly at them, compared to the situation when they do not interact with them.

The second experiment involved 24 cats from eight different households. This time, it was not the owners who blinked, but the researchers, who had no previous contact with the cats. To control for this, the cats responded to a "no-blink" condition, where people looked at the cats without blinking.

The researchers performed the same slow blinking process as in the first experiment, adding an outstretched hand toward the cat. They found that the cats not only blinked back more often, but also approached the human hand more often after it blinked.

"This is the first study to show the role of slow blinking in cat-human communication," McComb said, adding that you can always do a similar experiment with your own pet cat, or with cats you meet on the street. It's a great way to strengthen your relationship with cats. Try narrowing your eyes while looking at them, like in a relaxed smile, and then close your eyes for a couple of seconds.

"You will see that they react in the same way, and you can start something like a conversation," the psychologist assures.

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