Research library
🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries
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17 summaries matching “dog” in Domestic Cat Science on domestic cat
Attachment bonds between domestic cats and humans
PaperVitale, Behnke and Udell adapted the secure base test used with infants and dogs to ask whether cats form attachment bonds with their owners. Cats experienced a brief separation from and reunion with…
Kristyn R. Vitale, Alexandra C. Behnke, Monique A. R. Udell · Current Biology · 2019
Cats discriminate human emotional cues
PaperGalvan and Vonk investigated whether domestic cats are sensitive to their owners' emotional expressions, a capacity well documented in dogs. Cats were exposed to their owner displaying either a happy…
Moriah Galvan, Jennifer Vonk · Animal Cognition · 2016
Comparative analysis of the domestic cat genome and domestication signatures
PaperMontague and colleagues produced a high-quality domestic cat reference genome and compared it with wild felids and other mammals to find the genetic footprint of domestication. They detected selection…
Michael J. Montague, Gang Li, Barbara Gandolfi, et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2014
Domestic cats do not show signs of secure attachment to their owners
PaperPotter and Mills applied a modified Ainsworth Strange Situation Test to pet cats to test whether they treat owners as an attachment figure providing security. Measuring behaviours during separations a…
Alice Potter, Daniel S. Mills · PLoS ONE · 2015
Earliest evidence for commensal cat processes at Quanhucun, China
PaperAt the 5,300-year-old farming village of Quanhucun in central China, Hu and colleagues combined zooarchaeology with stable isotope analysis of cat, rodent, human and dog bones to reconstruct an early…
Yaowu Hu, Songmei Hu, Weilin Wang, et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2014
Invasive predators and global biodiversity loss
PaperDoherty and colleagues assessed the contribution of invasive predators, prominently including feral cats, to global vertebrate extinctions and declines. Analyzing threatened and extinct species worldw…
Tim S. Doherty, Alistair S. Glen, Dale G. Nimmo, Euan G. Ritchie, Chris R. Dickman · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2016
Research overview: brachycephaly and welfare in flat-faced cat breeds
OverviewSelective breeding for a flat, shortened face in Persians and related breeds produces brachycephaly, and this overview surveys its welfare consequences. It examines how extreme facial conformation is…
Research overview: cats and human attentional state
OverviewWhether cats track whether a person is paying attention to them bears on their social cognition. This overview surveys experiments testing if cats adjust their behaviour according to a human's attenti…
Research overview: cats and human pointing in object-choice tasks
OverviewObject-choice tasks, in which an animal must use a human pointing gesture to find hidden food, are a standard probe of social cognition. This overview surveys studies applying these tasks to cats, whi…
Research overview: comparing cat and dog domestication
OverviewDogs and cats represent contrasting domestication stories, and comparing them clarifies what domestication means. This overview surveys the differences: dogs descend from wolves through a long, intens…
Research overview: gaze following and referential cues in cats
OverviewFollowing another's gaze can indicate sensitivity to where attention is directed, and researchers have asked whether cats follow human gaze. This overview surveys the comparatively sparse evidence in…
Research overview: oxytocin and affiliative cat-human interaction
OverviewOxytocin, a hormone involved in social bonding, has been studied in dogs during owner interaction, and researchers have asked whether cats show comparable hormonal responses. This overview surveys the…
Research overview: stability of cat attachment styles over time
OverviewA key question raised by findings of secure and insecure attachment in cats is whether those styles are stable traits or transient states. This overview surveys evidence on the consistency of feline a…
Research overview: the commensal pathway model of cat domestication
OverviewAnimal domestication is often described as following three routes: a commensal pathway, a prey pathway and a directed pathway. This overview focuses on the commensal model as applied to cats, in which…
Social referencing and cat-human communication
PaperMerola and colleagues tested whether cats engage in social referencing, looking to a human for emotional information about an ambiguous situation. Cats and owners were presented with a potentially ala…
Isabella Merola, Marta Lazzaroni, Sarah Marshall-Pescini, Emanuela Prato-Previde · Animal Cognition · 2015
The ascent of cat breeds: genetic evaluations of breeds and random-bred populations
PaperLipinski and colleagues used a panel of genetic markers to characterize the population structure of cat breeds and worldwide random-bred cats. They found that most modern cat breeds are relatively rec…
Monika J. Lipinski, Lutz Froenicke, Kathryn C. Baysac, et al. · Genomics · 2008
Visual communicative signals in cat-human and dog-human interactions
PaperMiklosi and colleagues compared how cats and dogs use and respond to human visual communicative signals, particularly pointing gestures indicating hidden food. Both species could follow human pointing…
Adam Miklosi, Peter Pongracz, Gabriella Lakatos, Jozsef Topal, Vilmos Csanyi · Journal of Comparative Psychology · 2005