Multimodal Communication in the Human-Cat Relationship: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Across all species, communication implies that an emitter sends signals to a receiver, through one or more channels. Cats can integrate visual and auditory signals sent by humans and modulate their behaviour according to the valence of the emotion perceived. However, the specific patterns and channels governing cat-to-human communication are poorly understood. This study addresses whether, in an extraspecific interaction, cats are sensitive to the communication channel used by their human interlocutor. We examined three types of interactions-vocal, visual, and bimodal-by coding video clips of 12 cats living in cat cafés. In a fourth (control) condition, the human interlocutor refrained from emitting any communication signal. We found that the modality of communication had a significant effect on the latency in the time taken for cats to approach the human experimenter. Cats interacted significantly faster to visual and bimodal communication compared to the "no communication" pattern, as well as to vocal communication. In addition, communication modality had a significant effect on tail-wagging behaviour. Cats displayed significantly more tail wagging when the experimenter engaged in no communication (control condition) compared to visual and bimodal communication modes, indicating that they were less comfortable in this control condition. Cats also displayed more tail wagging in response to vocal communication compared to the bimodal communication. Overall, our data suggest that cats display a marked preference for both visual and bimodal cues addressed by non-familiar humans compared to vocal cues only. Results arising from the present study may serve as a basis for practical recommendations to navigate the codes of human-cat interactions.

Keywords: Felis catus; companion cats; human–cat interaction; interspecific communication; multimodal communication; social cognition.

Figure 1

Experimental setup.

Figure 2

Latency in time taken for cats to approach the experimenter according to each testing condition. Median, lower and upper quartiles of the data are given; error bars represent the 10th and 90th percentiles; n = 12. The letters in brackets (a,b) indicate significant differences: visual (c) and bimodal (d) are different from “no communication” (a) and from vocal (b), (p < 0.05).

Figure 3

Behaviour duration according to each testing condition for cats displaying tail wagging. Behaviour durations were adjusted to observation durations. Median, lower and upper quartiles of the data are given; error bars represent the 10th and 90th percentiles; dots represent outliers; n = 12. The letters in brackets indicate significant differences: visual and bimodal are different from (a) “no communication”, bimodal is different from (b) vocal, (p < 0.05).