People around the world live with cats and cats adopt many social behavior towards their owners. Olfaction is one of the most important sensory capacities in cats, but its role in the recognition of humans is not clear. In a new study, scientists at the University of Agriculture of Tokyo have evaluated the role and characteristics of olfaction in the discrimination of humans known or unknown by domestic cats.
Mine and al. describes the behavioral responses of Felis Cattus to human olfactory stimuli; They suggest that cats use their olfaction for humans recognition; In addition, they suggest that olfactory exploratory behavior in cats is linked to the characteristics of the personality and that there is a lateralization of the left and right nostrils in the detection of odors. Image credit: SCI.NEWS / MAKIENI777 / RISE-A-MUI / Alexas_Fotos / DOROTHE / VACLAV Zavada / Artem Makarov / Daga Roszkowska / Birgit / Pasi Mammela.
“Dogs (Dog family) and cats (Sus scrofa) are popular pets that adopt many social behaviors with their owners, ”said the first author of the study, Dr. Yutaro Miyari and his colleagues.
“Previous studies have focused on the social relationships and behaviors of these animals with their owners.”
“For example, dogs can identify human emotional expressions based on facial and vocal information, that is to say that they can process social information from humans.”
“Cats also have remarkable social cognitive capacities, which gain the interest of researchers.”
“Studies on cat-human interactions are less advanced than these studies in dogs.”
In the study, researchers studied if cats were able to distinguish between familiar and unknown humans depending on the odor alone.
They tested thirty domestic cats by presenting them plastic tubes containing escapes which had been rubbed under the armpit, behind the ear, and between the toes of their owner or a human whom they had never encountered.
Cats have spent a lot longer to sniff unknown smells than their owner or an empty tube.
Scientists also found that cats were initially more likely to sniff unknown smells with their right nostril, but later went to their left nostril as they familiarize themselves with the smell.
The owners of participating cats were also invited to fill out an online questionnaire to assess the person’s personality and their relationship with their owner.
Male cats with neurotic personalities tended to sniff each tube repeatedly, while males with more pleasant personalities have sniffed the tubes more calmly.
However, there was no personality effect on the behavior of female cats during experience.
The results suggest that domestic cats can distinguish between familiar and unknown humans depending on their smell, but it is not clear if they can identify specific humans depending on the odor alone.
The observation that cats preferred to study new smells with their right nostril suggests that they can promote different hemispheres in their brain for different tasks – a phenomenon that has previously been demonstrated in other animals, including dogs, fish and birds.
“We suggest that cats use their olfaction for humans recognition,” said the authors.
“In addition, we record a characteristic friction (marking) behavior on the point of sniff, indicating that sniffing can be an exploratory behavior preceding the friction of the smell (marking) in cats.”
“This relationship justifies a more in -depth investigation with the theory of knowing whether cats are able to recognize a specific person from olfactory indices.”
The study was published online in the journal Plos a.
_____
Y. MIYAIRI and al. 2025. Behavioral responses of domestic cats with a human smell. Plos a 20 (5): E0324016; DOI: 10.1371 / Journal.pone.0324016
