The what, now? you may ask, reading this title. The social life of cats? Cat owners may have some doubts about this very concept.
But in the last decade or so, there has been an upsurge of more and more studies that show that cats in fact display a tremendous amount of social intelligence—although the signs are much more difficult to spot than in the case of some other species. In fact, after much focus on first primates, and then corvids and dogs in the last half century, in recent years, there has been more and more research conducted on the social cognition of cats.
And a recent study reveals a crucial piece of the puzzle. It is about “rapid facial mimicry”—the simple phenomenon that imitating the facial expression of another animal facilitates social interaction. Smiling in response to a smile or frowning in response to a frown would be examples of rapid facial mimicry, and it is most often not something we do intentionally and deliberately, or that we are even aware of. We already know that rapid facial mimicry plays a crucial role in the social life of macaques, orangutans, and dogs and horses. The new study shows that rapid facial mimicry is especially important for the social interaction between cats.
This may come as a surprise. Cats often do not come across as having the variety of facial expressions typical of, say, dogs or primates. But appearances can be misleading. While your cat may just always look aloof, in fact, previous studies showed that cats exhibit more than 300 different facial expressions.
These different facial expressions are difficult to differentiate for the human eye, so the researchers used artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze the facial expressions of cats interacting in a cat cafe and found that cats were much more likely to interact after rapid facial mimicry (especially when it comes to the mimicry of ear and mouth movement).
This study has an important impact not just on the study of feline social cognition but, in terms of methodology, also on the use of AI to analyze fine-grained behavioral patterns, like the facial expressions of cats. Importantly, the connection between rapid facial mimicry and social cognition in cats could also provide us with diagnostic tools when it comes to both long-term deficiencies and short-term challenges with social situations. It may also help us appreciate the social life—and social grace—of our cats.