Who even thought to cats such closed and solitary animals we have a new opportunity to change his mind. A study published in Behavioral Processes confirmed that the reputation of secretive creatures of the cats totally unjustified: those who believe that they are, do not know them enough or does not pay them the attention they deserve.

According to researchers at Oregon State University who led the study, the level of attention given to humans and the environment of cats origins affect their desire to interact even more familiar with the human itself, which seems not a discriminating factor . In any case, the cats show - as their friends sapiens - a great variability in the sociability: in other words, there 'is no fixed rule, but much depends on the character.

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Can I have your attention? The researchers involved 46 cats in two experiments to evaluate how dedicated attention, origin of cat and familiarity with the influissero man on their sociability. The degree of feline espansivit was assessed by quantifying the time spent by the animals close to humans and measuring the frequency of their meows.

In the first experiment, cats (half domestic and half of the shelter) spent first two minutes with a person who did not speak and did not move, then another two minutes with the same person, this time calling them to s and stroked them. The second test took place identically, but with domestic cats and their owners.

Even more affectionate. The attention devoted by humans have affected the propensity to approach cats meow and, regardless of the origin of cats (it worked, that is, both domestic ones and with guests of the shelter).

The foundlings cats were more likely to spend time next to human inattentive, and meowing to attract their eyes, perhaps because their history made them more in need of attention.

The familiarity with the experimenters involved has not, however, affected more than time on "social outbursts" of cats, which still showed a range of very different personalities: individual variability therefore an important factor to be taken into account when it comes to feline behavior .

Pi careful than most people realize. In both groups we observed that cats spend much more time with the people who lend their attention Kristyn explains Vitale, one of the authors. This set of tests indicates that domestic cats recognize the level of human attention and change their behavior in response to it, because they are sensitive to human social cues.

Previous studies have shown that cats choose to spend more time with the humans with food or games, and are extremely receptive to the way we communicate: notice the hand movements, tone of voice and the mood.

From Focus