A feline scientist explains why your cat might like you

This article is part of our special Pets section, about scientists’ growing interest in our companion animals.

Over the past two decades, a flurry of scientific studies have shown time and time again that dogs are social savants, highly attuned to human cues.

But even as cognitive science flourished in dogs, few researchers bothered to investigate the social skills of cats. After all, dogs descended from the social gray wolf and were deliberately designed to fulfill specific roles alongside humans. Cats, on the other hand, descended from the solitary African wildcat and were not subject to the same selective pressures from humans. They were seen as antisocial and, for good measure, uncooperative, making them unattractive subjects of study.

In recent years, however, a handful of intrepid scientists have produced a small number of studies suggesting that we have underestimated cats’ social skills, and that interest is growing. “I see more and more papers every year,” said Kristyn Vitale, an animal behavior scientist at Unity Environmental University in Maine. “We just have a lot of catching up to do.”

Dr. Vitale, who has three cats of her own, often collaborates with Monique Udell, the director of the human-animal interaction lab at Oregon State University. Dr. Vitale spoke to The New York Times about their research — and about her dream study of cat cognition.

The following has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What do people often misunderstand about cats?

The main thing I see is people saying that cats are not social creatures, or that social interaction is not important for cats. Cats are very flexible in their social behavior. So it is very individual and based on the cat and its personal experiences.

Cats need to experience socialization with humans within an important period of their lives in order to develop healthy social behavior toward humans. So if you have a cat that has never met anyone, especially early on as a kitten, it will grow up fearing people because it has never learned that people are something that can be a source of good things.

If cats are given the right experiences, we see that they can build a bond with their owners. This bond can be strong and stable over a longer period of time.

You have taught kitten courses. What does that mean?

Very much like a dog class, we did things like sit, come when called, go to the mat, walk on a harness and leash. For the last class, people learned a trick that they wanted to do with their cat. So I had people learn to jump through a hoop. I think the most advanced behavior was sit and stay while kayaking on a lake.

We had more than 50 kittens and their owners. Kittens from 3 to 8 months old could come to this environment, train, socialize, and we never had a fight. A big part of it is controlling the situation and watching the cats’ behavior. When a cat starts showing signs of stress, it’s time to put an end to it and send him home.

What are you working on now?

We are collecting data on cat-assisted interventions for children with developmental differences. So kids bring their pet cats to our location at Oregon State University and learn how to train their cats, how to read their body language and behavior. We look at whether there are potential benefits for the child in terms of their physical activity or their social well-being, and then also, on the other hand, whether there are any benefits for the cat. Has a deeper bond been formed between the cat and the child? Are there differences in social behavior or their ability to read social cues?

Which study would you like to do?

We’ve just started investigating the social cognition of domestic and shelter cats, but we haven’t really done it with these outdoor cats yet. There are cats that live in Rome, in the Colosseum. In Japan there are cat islands, which I visited, where huge groups of cats live together. I think that would be interesting to look at: how socially intelligent are these outdoor cats?

What do you want cat owners to know?

We had a research project that showed that if you pay attention to cats, cats spend more time with you. I think too often people get a cat and leave it in the house and don’t do anything with it. It’s really about finding that bond and what they prefer and what you can do together.