The Science Of Feline Hellos With Dr. Kaan Kerman

Ever wondered why your cat saves their biggest “hello” for you at the door—and why some people get louder greetings than others? We sit down with Dr. Kaan Kerman to unpack a new study showing that cats vocalize more during greetings when their caregiver is male. The result surprised the team and opens a fresh window into human – cat communication, where meows, trills, and chirps act less like food requests and more like social glue.

We walk through how citizen science made this research possible — real homes, real cats — and why greeting deserves its own category in feline behavior. You’ll hear how vocalizations did not correlate with other affiliative signals like tail-up or rubbing, suggesting parallel channels rather than a single measure of affection. We also confront the hard part: classifying cat sounds is messy, and context matters. That’s why the study coded vocalizations broadly while urging deeper audio analysis across repeated greetings.

Our conversation digs into potential reasons for the male-caregiver effect, from differences in how people typically talk to cats to how cats learn what works with specific humans. Culture may play a role, so we sketch research ideas for cross-cultural comparisons and for measuring caregiver behavior—voice, posture, timing — during controlled greeting scenarios. Along the way, we touch on kneading, comfort vs function, and the pitfalls of anthropomorphism, keeping focus on what the data supports.

If you want to strengthen your bond, start at the threshold. Notice who your cat greets first, how they sound, and what changes when you mirror their pace, soften your voice, and make your responses consistent. Subscribe for more science-driven insights, share this with a fellow cat person, and leave a review to help others find the show. What’s your cat’s signature hello—and who gets it the loudest?

Transcript

Welcome & Study Headline

Kristiina Wilson 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome to episode 39 of Hiss and Tell. Today we're gonna get into some really interesting research about how cats greet their people and why those vocalizations might be more common when the caregiver is male. I'm gonna speak with Dr. Kaan Kerman about what cat vocalizations actually mean, how cats adapt their behavior to different humans, why greeting is its own unique social context, and what all of this can teach us about strengthening our relationships with the cats we live with. So join us. Here we go. Welcome to another episode of Hiss and Tell. I am your host, Kristiina Wilson, and with me today is Dr. Kaan

Kristiina Wilson 0:38

Kerman, who studies human-animal interaction. Welcome, Dr. Kerman.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 0:43

Thank you so much. Thank you for your warm invitation. So I'm very happy to be here.

Kristiina Wilson 0:47

Very happy to have you. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you study, where you studied, and just exactly who you are?

Dr. Kaan Kerman 0:56

Sure, sure. So I'm currently an instructor in the department of psychology at Bilkant University in Turkey, Ankara, Turkey. So I have a background in biology. I've studied animal behavior, human-animal interactions. I get my PhD from Italy. I spent some time in the United States getting my master's degree. So I studied all kinds of animals from birds to insects. And obviously, the topic of today's discussion pet animals, cats, and dogs to a little extent, too.

Guest Background & Research Path

Kristiina Wilson 1:28

Yeah. So yes, that brings me to the topic of today's discussion, which is your very interesting paper. Greeting vocalizations in domestic cats are more frequent with male caregivers. And for everyone listening, I will put a link to this paper at the bottom of our episode page so that you can go and read it for yourself. So can you tell a little bit about the paper, about the study, and were you expecting to find any demographic effects on these greeting behaviors, or was the vocalization with male caregivers surprising to you?

Dr. Kaan Kerman 2:02

So one thing that was quite fascinating was that we had zero expectations about what to find. So uh what we did was we um, as as many of you know, as many of our listeners know, there are a lot of things that we don't know about cats. I mean, we have assumptions about cats, uh, there has been tons of research about cats, but you know, many of the things that we know about cats rely on information that that are received thanks to the support of caregivers, but mostly in the format of surveys and questionnaires because of the difficulty of measuring cats themselves in a lab environment. I mean, good luck with that. Yeah. If you want to invite them to a lab.

Speaker 2:48

I know.

Study Design & Citizen Science Method

Main Finding: More Meows For Male Caregivers

Dr. Kaan Kerman 2:49

So yeah, and and and and and and you know, uh that that's one of the things that that that we wanted to explore. So, what about uh doing these kinds of uh studies uh in a in a in a slightly different format, which has been gaining popularity in the in the last decade or so? Uh citizen science, asking people to actually send videos of their cats, trying to make it as as you know standardized as possible. It's not gonna be perfectly laboratory conditions that we always assumed the science would be, right? So, like we're controlling the environment, the weather, the temperatures. It's not gonna be possible with those kinds of studies, but we do our best. So we wanted to see like how cats interact with their owners. Uh, there are you know tons of research on separation-related behaviors and whatnot. So we wanted to see like how do they react when when their owners um you know go outside and come back home after some time, and and we wanted to sort of just see the cats' reactions themselves. So what that's what we did. And we looked at all kinds of things that that that might be considered within the umbrella term that we have, in related behaviors, all kinds of different things. You know, we call them behavioral metrics, so all kinds of behaviors that most of us are familiar with, such as, you know, tail-up posture, elo-rubbing, vocalizations, movement, all kinds of things, 30 or so behaviors that we can talk in detail later on. And then we looked at all kinds of demographic factors, whether they're influenced by those demographic factors, both the sort of like the demographic information about cats themselves, uh, as far as we can tell, and also uh demographic information about the about the caregivers. So the only thing that we found to our surprise was that was that males caregivers essentially elicited a higher frequency of calls. That is to say, the cats vocalized more as their owners entered the homes compared to human females.

Speaker 4:50

Right.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 4:51

So that was the main finding. And it wasn't influenced by any other factors as far as we can tell, at least in our sample, from you know, from cats' own sex and age to to all the other things that we you know did record, such as you know, the P degree status, the the acquisition type, whether they were purchased or not. So we we did not find any of those effects. So they did it, they did not influence this pattern that we have. So that's that's the interest in finding. So yeah, we were definitely surprised. Yeah. But we didn't have any um, you know, prior supposition. So we didn't we didn't have any presuppositions about the study. We just wanted to see, like, let's see what they do.

Kristiina Wilson 5:35

So I think that's such an interesting result for a lot of reasons, but also, you know, cat as obviously you know, and I think everyone listening knows is that cats don't usually greet each other vocally. So, do you have any thoughts about why they're doing that with us as humans?

Why Cats Vocalize To Humans, Not Cats

Dr. Kaan Kerman 5:49

So it's definitely something related to their own co-evolution with us. So that's the main thing that that all cat researchers would probably agree on. And it happens in not just cats, but in other pet animals as well, domesticated animals to use a broader term. So I think obviously they don't know that. I mean, they might know it, it's just we don't know whether they're doing that in purpose or not, whether there is some kind of intentionality. But those kinds of calls and vocalizations work great on humans. So many, many pet animals vocalize more, cats, dogs, and and then some farm animals too, when they're interacting with their caregivers, with humans. And I think sort of we're, you know, if we talk about that from an evolutionary perspective, prime to respond to those kinds of vocalizations.

Kristiina Wilson 6:39

Yes.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 6:39

So I think that's what's going on here. But definitely that's not what we see when we look at intraspecific interactions. Right. That's to say, interactions between cats. When a cat interacts with the member of its own species, you know, that's not how things work or or that's not how things unfold most of the time.

Kristiina Wilson 6:59

Right. It's true. Yeah. I mean, they have all all their own body language cues and all the things that they do with each other that we certainly we certainly are not doing with them. Yeah. A lot of what they do. I don't think we're about to go do with our catch. I won't go into here, but I think everyone can probably guess a lot of things.

Speaker 7:20

I know, yeah.

Possible Reasons For Male-Focused Meowing

Kristiina Wilson 7:22

Specific cat things that many of our cats were doing this morning right in my face. And I was like, no, thank you. I know that's so polite for you, but no. Anyway, do you have any thoughts about the possible explanations for why cats were vocalizing more towards the male caregivers? Do you think they might be adjusting for the differences in how men and women typically typically interact with them? Or, you know, maybe the the male caregivers are noticing their body language communication style less, and so they're kind of upping their vocalization more. Or do you have any thoughts on why this might be?

Vocalizations vs Other Greeting Behaviors

Dr. Kaan Kerman 8:01

Yeah, yeah. So um the short answer is we have no idea. I mean, sure. One of the things that that is yet to be explored in detail, but we do propose some hypotheses that that will be tested in the future. So one of the things that that I think we have indirect evidence of due to um other studies done on human-cat interactions, how cats interact with their caregivers, there appears to be um um um a sex slash gender difference. I mean, I'm using cess as a sort of a biological term because we cannot assume people's genders in these studies most of the time. So there appears to be um a sex difference when it comes to how humans interact with cats. Again, uh, like you know, we do know that females are more likely to vocalize with their cats, talk more to them or say things to them, crutch more, pet them more. That doesn't, again, we are talking about statistical patterns. Usually, when you talk about those kinds of things, people assume that everyone in this particular group are doing something or not doing something. Obviously, many male owners do that, but on average, that's more likely to be the case for females. Again, children act slightly differently when it comes to cats, and also they react, I think, more to cats' elicitations and cues and signals that they're emitting, but it's not done in the vocalization or greeting context. So that suggests us that there could be some kind of a difference in terms of how um different sexes react to cats, and that in this case might mean that cats are learning, adapting to those differences. So that's one possibility. Like they're they're great adapters. I mean, they they they're quite flexible in terms of their behavior, they're learning those things. So I should behave this way. Obviously, there's this assumption that they might be able to understand, you know, they definitely categorize the concept formation and categorization, is a thing it's found throughout the animal kingdom. So I think they're doing the same thing. Obviously, we don't know whether they're doing they're doing that in the case of like human males, human females. Maybe that's not the case, but definitely they learn those kinds of things and adapt to that those kinds of conditions fairly easily. And also, you know, there's there's something else that we can say, and that's mostly about uh some cultural differences as well. That doesn't change the fact that cats still adapting, right? But maybe it's not a universal thing, maybe it's just a cultural thing, and and and and we have to wait and see, so to speak, so to see whether like similar studies find the same pattern in in different parts of the world, but that doesn't change the fact that cats are essentially learning those things and adapting to that. One other thing that I want to point out, which is usually misinterpreted when you talk about those things, is that we are focusing on vocalizations emitted in the greeting context. For example, not in the foraging context.

Speaker 11:03

Right.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 11:04

So it was just the greeting context. So they might, I mean, they are vocalizing for various other kinds of reasons. So it might mean that it's just the greeting context. For some reason, that's what's going on. I mean, to give you give you guys an example from my own household, my cat vocalized more to me when I actually entered the home. But when it's, you know, one thing that we have to say, you know, acknowledge about the Turkish household is that we don't actually what we do is we do ad lubudum feeding. That is to say, they always have something to eat. Like we don't have strict schedules, dietary schedules. But even if that's the case, my wife sometimes does things that that she's not supposed to do in the sense that some some food items that might be very bad for for the long-term health of my cat or our cat, so to speak. Like, you know, things that are that are delicious to cats, but but you have to be careful. So so she learned those things. So he is meowing and vocalizing more to my to my wife than it's sort of cooking time, right? So when she is in the kitchen, but she's he's not doing the same thing when someone else enters the home. So that means that greeting is something different, something else going on when it comes to greeting. But this is again, and the media has been misinterpreted a lot. Like it's not generally speaking, cats vocalize more. Maybe that's the case if you look at more studies, but it might not be the case. So we can't say that it's just vocalizations in general, right? Oh, of course. Yeah, it's yes, the greeting greeting-related vocalizations, right? Yeah, yeah.

The Challenge Of Classifying Cat Sounds

Kristiina Wilson 12:41

And and they're all they are, they do tend to all be different vocalizations as well, right? Which was the next thing that I wanted to get into with you. But at least within our house, we have currently 15 cats in our house, so we have a lot of cats. And lots of vocalizations, and you know, each cat has their own specific, you know, when you have this many and you're a cat researcher, you obviously learn what each one means. And so each cat has a different one for a different thing, and one might mean play, and one might mean where are you, and one might mean I'm hungry, and they they all mean different things. And it really is interesting to get to know all of the different meanings of the different kinds of meows and trills and chirps and greeting sounds and you know, annoyed sounds and these these kinds of things. So the next thing I wanted to talk to you about was that vocalization didn't correlate with the other affiliative behaviors in your study. So, what does that tell us about the role of like meows and trills and chirps in greeting contexts?

Cultural Factors & Cross-Cultural Ideas

Dr. Kaan Kerman 13:44

Yeah. So for example, as you mentioned, uh vocalizations did not correlate with the movement towards the food cup. Um so um, at least in our in our sample, there was no correlation whatsoever, neither positive nor negative. So that suggests that it has not, I mean, at least in our sample, it has nothing to do with foraging behavior per se. So uh my assumption is that, and and this is something that that uh is is gaining has been gaining some traction for the last 20 years or so, is that cats are not loners, cats are not necessarily just interacting with us to get something material in the sense of food or shelter. I think what they're looking for in those kinds of cases is just some kind of socialization. Not entirely sure what that might be, in the sense that you know what is going on in their minds. Uh, but I think those vocalizations again, um, I mean, cats cat vocalizations are a notorious thing to study. Um because yeah, so the all kinds of um that people have been uh attempting to categorize them. There has been some excellent studies on that, but all most of the time there's another paper that's coming up saying that, well, that's not the best way to categorize them, let's categorize them this way, and then we all scratch our heads and go back and then see that well, there's some minor things going on in this, like we mostly say the mouse and and shrills, whatever, but it's probably much more complex than that. And that's by the way, one of the reasons why we just said vocalizations, because like because it's it's a very difficult thing to categorize objectively most of the time, like you know, when we want to do a more detailed study of vocalizations, right? So it could be that certain types of vocalizations might be associated, as many people assume, associated with socialization. Obviously, we know a lot more about cat-cat interactions, cat versus cat interactions, like how vocalizations work in that context, but not that many things about how cats vocalize when they're interacting with humans, because there are all kinds of flexible responses that that we have to acknowledge. So I think it's more about socialization and and um the other thing that that we can say is that it it wasn't necessarily correlated with displacement behaviors, whatever that is, right? That's another thing that this displacement is just something that is going on in these cats, and and it's probably an emotional turmoil and conflict, and then they're trying to resolve that behavior. So again, this is another one of those things that I mean the vocalization is not necessarily correlated with that. So um so I I assume it's mostly to it has something to do with socialization. That's what that's the only thing that I can say.

Kristiina Wilson 16:48

Yeah.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 16:50

At least in our study.

Kristiina Wilson 16:52

No, I mean that that totally makes sense. So why might cats kind of separate those affiliative gestures like the tail up or rubbing from their vocal communication when they're greeting us?

Owner–Cat Sex Preferences & Patterns

Dr. Kaan Kerman 17:04

Yeah, that's a great question. So again, it's not like, well, I should vocalize more if the body posture is not working, because otherwise we would have seen a negative correlation, right? So it's just like two different strategies. Well, you know, he or she is not paying that much attention to my needs, so I should switch to vocalizations or I should, you know, go back to you know, physical changes, morphological changes. I mean, vocalization is also physical in a sense, but we don't see any kind of correlation with in that in that case as well. So again, this is one of the things that I really don't have a good answer for. So it's fair. Yeah, it's just yeah, this is one of the things that's like, why is it going on?

Kristiina Wilson 17:53

And then who knows?

Dr. Kaan Kerman 17:55

Well, oh well, yeah, future studies, hopefully.

Kristiina Wilson 17:58

Yeah, I love how like all qu like so many questions end up being like, I don't know, future studies.

Learning, Flexibility, And Training Humans

Dr. Kaan Kerman 18:04

Yeah, there's just no idea. And this happens a lot more in cats, by the way, and animals. That's one of the surprising things that I found. Why I I've been studying animals for the last, like scientifically studying now, for the last 15 years or so. So I started out with birds and then switched to insects, and then in recent years, you know, I I decided to work on on human-animal interactions, you know, pet behavior, especially cats. And and the game changer was actually us adopting a cat. One one thing like eight years ago or so. And one interesting thing that I've realized was that, okay, so I'm looking at this cat, and and he's doing all kinds of things, and I'm trying to figure out why that might be the case. Like, what's the reason behind the study? It's these questions are difficult, but it again, comparatively speaking, easy to understand in in wild animals or wild populations. And then I'm looking at this cat, and then like, well, I should go ahead and check some papers to see what the main reason why my cat is doing that, and then I look at the literature, the literature review, find nothing, or people are just like, we don't know, guys. There's just like, I have no idea why this cats are doing this thing, and then I go back and look at the cat again, and then there's the mystery still still stands. I mean, this is one of the things about cats, it's just quite a difficult organism to study if we want to learn their behavior and cognition. Again, in the last 10 years or so, excellent work has been coming up, and then and we read them. That's that's a great thing. But to compare it to other species, such as kinds of birds that I studied on zebra finches, I studied parakeets, among parakeets in in the States. So, you know, parrots in general, like 100 years or so, yeah, you know, all the things that you can ever say about parrots, or like somewhere in There, right? You just you just need to dig in and find those papers. Cats are just like, this is probably why they do it, guys. Like a hundred-year-old paper. And then people then follow up, like assume that that's probably why they do it. And then finally, in recent years, people are like, okay, so let's check those assumptions with the testosterone. And then the answer is that well, that assumption doesn't hold anymore. So what's the alternative? No idea. We should do more easy.

Multi-Cat Households & Greeting Dynamics

Kristiina Wilson 20:27

Well, the thing is, I think it's so it's so interesting because for the longest time, like it just wasn't considered, I don't even know if it's relevant or like okay to study cats, you know. I know you couldn't do it. I wasn't allowed, I wasn't allowed. My my thesis had to be on dogs because it couldn't, I couldn't study cats, you know, when obviously cats has always been my interest, but it just there was no one doing it, so you couldn't work under anyone, right? And then even if that was your interest, it just wasn't it wasn't good enough, or it wasn't it wasn't what anyone was interested in. And so you had to pick something else, like you said, like parrots, great. Z the parrots and zebra finches were like the big thing at my school, or dogs, exactly, or elephants.

Speaker 21:09

Elephants, yeah.

Kristiina Wilson 21:10

Those were all all those people were like great, and I'm just the was the one person who was like, but I like cats, and they're like, No.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 21:18

Yeah, yeah. So cats, yeah.

Kristiina Wilson 21:20

So it's nice to see finally cats are like really being considered real and relevant, and there is real science coming out about them, which is in part why I started this podcast because there's so many act people I can actually talk to now, so it's I feel like I'm not in a void. That's just me staring at our 15 cats being like, like, what can I do in our house? But anyway, it is it's really nice to see that, but it's just it's so strange that they were just kind of like this hole in the market for so long and they were considered irrelevant weirdos and not worth study.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 21:54

Yeah, exactly. And then don't even get me started on wild populations of cats, like wild cats, it's just I know we make all kinds of assumptions about wild cats, and then you know, they don't look like or they don't behave like wild cats, and then I'm like, okay, so let me look at some papers and see what their behaviors are in a wilder context, and then I find nothing. So that's at least the speech, at least the population that we assume our domestic cats evolved from, right? So there's essentially nothing in there except some ecological work, like where they where you can find them, you know, those kinds of basic, basic biological uh facts, but not essentially their behaviors per se. So that's another thing. Cats, yeah.

Kristiina Wilson 22:42

So you did your study in Turkey. Do you think there are any cultural factors that you think might have influenced the results of the study, like versus if you had done the same study in Western Europe or in the US? Like, do you think the the vocalization findings might have differed? I know it's kind of like an impossible question, but No, no.

Measuring Caregiver Behavior In Future Work

What To Study Next In Greetings

Dr. Kaan Kerman 23:03

Um, I mean, there could be cultural differences, definitely. It's it's hard to say what we would uh expect to see in other cultures. Right. I personally think that we will see similar patterns in different parts of the world as well. I think this is one of the things that goes beyond cultural differences, but that's my personal take. Sure. Obviously, it's it's it can be uh, you know, completely the opposite of what I'm seeing right now. But if you think about the interactions between cats and their caregivers, obviously there are cases of you know human female approaching cats in a slightly different way, in the sense that obviously cats are exhibiting various different kinds of behaviors that uh resemble a human infant. And and although both sexes have a tendency, so we call this a sensitivity to pedamorphic features or childlike features, both sexes carry those tendencies in us humans, like we find it cute, we really want to help those who have those pedamorphic features. Cats are even wild cats are pedamorphic from the start, right? So they they look cute, but one thing that changed in their evolution, I believe, is the ways in which they behave and act, especially the vocalization. So it could very well be the case that you know the interaction with with cats when we talk about that in a in a sex-different context might just be the same throughout the different parts of the world. Females are more attuned to those kinds of things compared to males, but who knows? So who knows? Yeah.

Kristiina Wilson 24:46

No, that's totally fair. I was just thinking about like if like how important cross-cultural comparisons are for understanding the cat human relationships, right? Yeah.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 24:57

Yeah, I mean, that we should have more like cross-cultural studies because what we have right now, what I did right now, is just the conjecture, right? So we we definitely need to do more research on that. Larger samples, it's always a difficult thing in cat research to find large samples. I mean, not because we don't we lack cats, we have millions of them. It's just to find people who are willing to participate in those studies, right? So that's where the citizen science comes into play. And and and yeah, we we should definitely do more collaborative work on those kinds of things. Again, uh, I think one of your guests in in in in the last week or so talked about the genetic aspect of it. I I think we we need to have a similar approach when it can maybe a many cats project, right? It's like many cats. We need to have a many cats, but we don't have it yet, but I think we should.

Kristiina Wilson 25:54

Yeah, no, I agree. So, oh, this was something I was really interested in. Was there any correlation of um cat sex to owner sex? Like, did male owners tend to have male cats or did female owners tend to have female cats? Like, did you happen to like run any stats on that to just see?

Kneading, Function, And Feline Minds

Dr. Kaan Kerman 26:15

Yeah, I don't think there so as far as I can tell, I don't recall the numbers, but I don't think we had a statistically significant difference in terms of the um sex, you know, whether whether male owners prefer male cats or or or female owners preferring female cats students. And and there was another study that we did um a year or so ago. Again, that I don't we don't find uh a statistical difference in that regard. At least again, in in our culture, because the participants were were the majority of them were Turkish. So yeah, that's but there could be some patterns in in other parts of the world. I don't I don't know whether that's the case. This is one of the things that we usually don't report, by the way. That's what I know.

Kristiina Wilson 27:04

That's why that's why I asked, because I didn't see it in here. And I I love to like, this is just me personally, and so I'll edit this out. I love to like drill into statistics to get like the little weird things. And I've noticed in our own house that we have we have seven boys and and eight girls, and the boys are like this boy gang, you know, they're just they're they're all together in this like dude gang. And because it's myself and my wife, there's more girls in the house than boys. And so whenever a guy comes over, like a handyman or like a guy friend, they're so excited and they're like, Oh, it's a dude, it's another guy, and they like they get so excited and are way more excited about greeting this like random dude. So I think in my head, I was just like, Oh, I wonder if the cats prefer, like if cats kind of male cats prefer having a male owner, or if vice versa. Like, do people self-select in this way?

Dr. Kaan Kerman 28:06

That's a great question, actually. I I I I do, you know, uh um I we we did a study with it with a um with a student of mine about cat acquisition um and and preferences, essentially asking them whether social essentially the setup was that we were looking at the potential effects of social status sensitivity on people's preferences for pedigree versus non-pedigree cats. So in in that regard, we didn't find any effects of cat uh effects of human gender sex on on cat sex. So there was no effect. Uh but social status had had it had an effect on terms of in terms of you know uh um the the the pedigree status. So that's that's just something else that we could talk about later. But yeah, that's an interesting thing. Um there could be some some weird stuff going on.

Kristiina Wilson 29:07

So could greeting vocalizations be partly shaped by learning? Like could cats be kind of training their humans depending on what works for them?

Dr. Kaan Kerman 29:16

I think that's what's going on.

Kristiina Wilson 29:18

Yeah.

Practical Takeaways For Stronger Bonds

Closing, Resources, And Thanks

Dr. Kaan Kerman 29:19

And I think that's uh that's definitely what's going on in households and pet animals, pet cats, uh, household cats. And many of our listeners, again, probably observed that uh with their own cats. And cats, again, are great learners, um, they're quite flexible in their behavior. Um, and one thing that we have to acknowledge about cats is that we mostly focus on conditioning responses. This is traditionally the cases where you have a cat learning to do something because there's either a reward or a punishment, right? What we called open conditioning or instrumental conditioning, and then they eventually figure out a way to get more food or get, you know, get away from something that's that's negative or or emotionally something that has a negative balance. But there's also a great many other types of learning that's going on uh that we know from humans, and there's some evidence in favor of that in and non-human animals as well. That's what we call cognitive learning. That is to say, there doesn't need to be any kind of external reward or punishment. Kids essentially animals figuring out that this is how things are in this particular environment, right? I think cats are doing that a lot. So sometimes we don't really give them any kind of positive reinforcement or a negative reinforcement, but but but they figure things out quite fast and quite easily. Um, and and you probably have experienced that as well. Again, um there are all kinds of differences between cats and and and and and cats do respond. And sometimes they use different vocalizations for for different kinds of things, uh like the same type of vocalization, but that type of vocalization is used to get the attention of their owners in a greeting context. But in another cat, this the same kind of vocalization is used for something else entirely, maybe not being able to access to a particular room or or a cupboard, right? So that's the thing that that we tend to see. So yeah. Learnability, flexibility, and these are the things that probably shape the grading behavior of cats.

Kristiina Wilson 31:33

Yeah. That makes sense. Did you observe any patterns in multicat households? I know that you only looked at one cat per household, but was there like a main cat in each in in multicat households who did the most vocalizing?

Dr. Kaan Kerman 31:49

Yeah, so when we have, I mean, uh we had one or two participants who had who were, I mean, multicat having more than one cat versus having just one cat, like multicat versus single-cat households, that didn't really have any kind of effect on the patterns that we see in in the results. So it didn't affect the results.

Speaker 32:09

Right.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 32:10

And in some of the videos where you have multi- you know, in in multi-cat households, there were certain cats that that that that came up and and started interacting. So we usually focus on those who elicited uh a contact faster, right? So there appears to be um situation, again, we can't say much about it. It's just, you know, based on our observations, but some cats are more apparently sociable towards their owners, like they're greeting them faster, and then you know, we asked them to send us you know five-minute long videos, but but many participants unfortunately didn't couldn't wait for five minutes, and then there was like like all kinds of differences. So we standardized it to to a hundred seconds, but in one of the videos, uh the cat, you know, there was one cat, and we thought that it was obviously they they um give us all kinds of information at the beginning of a study, but we didn't look at those so that it wasn't influencing our, you know, um our um video behavioral codings. So there was this case where there was one cat interacting with an owner for four minutes straight, right? So it's just like interacting, and then right at the last minute, like a few seconds, there was another cat coming up, shoving itself, not even paying any attention to the owner, and then disappearing, right? That's also something that happens. There were those kinds of things that that um requires some attention. I mean, again, multi-cat households are are quite interesting. We don't have many in Turkey. Usually we have uh, you know, we we we in most cases we find people that have only one cat. Um, because as you probably know, you know, Turkey is is renowned for its love of cats. So cats everywhere, wherever you go, you have cats. So people don't really feel the need to actually have more than one cat in most in most cases in there because I'm feeding all the other cats outside of my home, right? Yeah. But that that's that's an interesting thing to look at, you know, the greeting behavior in in multi-cat households, just focusing on them specifically to see the differences between cats.

Kristiina Wilson 34:30

Yeah, I think I'm personally gonna look at that now more when we come home. That's always the brown tabbies that are waiting for us at the door when we come in, because they can hear us, you know, obviously pull into the garage, and it's those three that are always like waiting right there. Yeah. Like the little the gang of those three, but I'm gonna pay more attention to it from now on. So, how would you like to include, would you like to include caregiver behavior in future analysis? You know, how much the person speaks or moves or bends down in future studies? Did you look at that at all? I don't think that you did.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 35:06

We did not. We did not look at that. We asked participants to act um uh as as naturally as possible, right? Um so that's what we asked them to do. And one thing we noticed was that they were mostly reacting to their cats uh in a normal fashion, but but as far as I can tell, only maybe one person really responded to their cats vocally, right? They did it. It was like something else going in my mind. Like, I think they have all kinds of silly songs for their cats that they sing when they had what they they they felt a little bit shy at that moment, and it was just like an unintentional standardization that we had. Like we asked them to act naturally, and then you know, those songs are they're gonna watch me at the university. Multiple scientists are gonna get together and and look at my video and will hear all those, you know, Sylla songs that I have for my cat, and they're gonna laugh and ridicule me. So they stopped that. They were petting and doing all kinds of things, but they did not vocalize that, you know, yeah, in many cases. Only I think only one person who did that, saying things, talking to their cats. Um so I I I'm definitely positive. Like, I mean, I really wanna pursue this line of work by adding a little bit of manipulation in the videos. I mean, uh adding a little bit of manipulation in the study, essentially asking people to vocalize and talk with their cats, you know, and and then at the same time asking others to stay silent. And we can just, you know, do a study where we balance these things across sex and and and and age and all kinds of other factors. So this is something that that we definitely want to do in the future.

Kristiina Wilson 36:54

So, what do you think, what variables do you think are the most urgent to investigate next in terms of the cat-human greeting communication?

Dr. Kaan Kerman 37:03

Okay, I think we just broadly speaking, we just need to study things from the cat's perspective. We need more research on that. I think that's the main thing. So, as I said earlier, we do know a lot about how humans respond to cats, how humans view their cats, their needs, their desires. But how cats respond to humans and and just looking at their behaviors directly is something that that that we need to investigate further. So I imagine studies where you actually not only look at the behavior that's being exhibited right at that moment, but a multiple day, you know, a continuous study where you replicate the same thing over time. We can look at not just vocalizations, but also things that are happening right before and right after the greeting itself. I think these are the like right, not right after, but if you know a few minutes, a few hours later. Those are some of the things that we usually miss uh because you know it's not greeting anymore.

Speaker 38:05

Right.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 38:05

And before that, the owner is not at home. I mean, we do have video recording, so we can do that, but it's again, it's not gonna be that easy. So those are the things. I mean, I think we I think we have a really good ethogram of of cat behavior. Like we do know those behaviors really well. It's just like, what's the function of those behaviors? That's the thing that we we're still trying to figure out. I mean, there are all kinds of things that they do. To give you an example, kneading behavior, right? That's one of my fascinations. There's just needing behavior, but not all needings are the same. Right. Right? There's there are kinds of needing behavior that that has some kind of a um sexual aspect to it, right? Um, and and and there are just needing behaviors that that are exhibited right before sleep. There are just other kinds of needing behaviors. We haven't, I mean, is again, we we don't really know what what the function of that behavior is or whether there is any function whatsoever, right? Uh so kneading behavior has been explained and sort of like detailed in terms of like what it is, we know what that is, but why do we have that? Well, it's probably because of the fact that you know, as kittens, cats were uh trying to elicit some milk from their mothers, and then and then it this translates into the needing behavior in adulthood. Why would they like why does it why is it something that's going? Is it because of a um um a byproduct of of them um carrying those uh pedamorphic juvenile like features in it into adulthood, or is it something that actually works on us humans and then that's why it was selected for in their past when they were being uh domesticated? And I think like even a simple thing as needing behavior requires more more more effort and I think in terms of creeting behavior, just just simple vocalizations. Again, uh all all kinds of vocalizations, but we don't really know which those vocalizations represent functionally for that cat, let alone like mentally, what's going on in the cats.

Kristiina Wilson 40:17

Who can ever say?

Dr. Kaan Kerman 40:18

Yeah, there is something going on, definitely. Oh, yeah. I'm not one of those people who say that it's a black box and we can't know for certain what cats are thinking. I mean, they are thinking animals. I mean, all most, I mean, is that's again beyond the focus of this talk, but but but cats, I mean, all animals have some kind of a mental capacity. It's just like, again, as you said, theory of mind. Where does it begin? Or like several layers of theory of mind. How many levels? Like, is it the second level? Is it the third higher? So, yeah, I mean, it's just just more research. I think I think cats is just one of the things that we need to do more research on. And every time we do something, I think we're gonna learn a lot more than just making assumptions.

Kristiina Wilson 41:01

Of course.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 41:02

And I yeah, and I and I think that's what we need to do. So, yeah, uh the needing behavior. That this is another thing that I want to focus on. I'm I'm fascinated with it. So I don't have a really good answer to why they do that. And nobody does, I believe.

Kristiina Wilson 41:18

Do cats in the wild do it?

Dr. Kaan Kerman 41:20

We don't know. I don't think we know that. I don't think we so so wild cat, I mean, felines, like you know, other species of cats, I don't think they exhibit that behavior. I don't know about wild cats. I mean, like wild wild cats, not like, you know, a little bit of domestic cat gene in it. I don't think we we really observed what's going on. The assumption here, I think, is that it stops after weaning, and that's the end of it, which might be the case. I think that's what's going on. I think that's really the case in in the wild cousins, cousins of cats, like the wild cats. But it's not like it's it's something that happens from time to time in cats. I mean, it's happening at specific moments in time for specific purposes, it's not just randomly occurring in a cat's life. It's like play behavior, one of those things that that that that you know carries into adulthood for those animals who has those uh juvenile-like features still existing even in adulthood. Um, but what's the purpose? Like, why do they do that? You know, like the explanations for it, things like, well, they miss their mom and they've seen as their mom, and that's what they're doing that, which is again an assumption, but not not very scientific in this case.

Kristiina Wilson 42:38

I thought it was also considered like a almost like a self-hypnotic, like comforting behavior, especially when it's like pre-sleep. It's it's used as almost like a human staring at the fire, just like a way to kind of do the self-hypnosis type real comforting, you know, in the same way that often that needing in kittens when they're needing to get the milk out of the mother leads to sleep when they'll sleep nurse, right? So it's kind of hearkening back to to that. I don't know. That's just something that I have that's my own conjecture from having from doing rescue work and seeing so many litters of kittens and raising them and then see seeing that happen. I'm like, oh, they do this, they fall asleep, but they're still sleep nursing, gives them a feeling of comfort. Then as as they're they're older before they get placed in their their homes, you know, and leave leave our house. I see them do that before they fall asleep. It seems to be like this is a comfort behavior that that they do that helps them get to sleep.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 43:34

That could be, I I I think some, and that's the thing. I don't think we have one type of needing behavior.

Kristiina Wilson 43:40

Yeah, no, I don't I don't think so either. But I I really fight against this idea, and this this again is just me personally. I don't like this idea that's perpetuated in kind of general that like cats view you as their mom. Like yeah, anthropomorphic, yeah. They're not stupid, they know you're not their mom.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 43:58

Like, I know, yeah.

Kristiina Wilson 44:01

That drives me crazy.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 44:03

I know, like anthropomorphizing cats. I mean, it's so easy to anthropomorphize them again. Just not viewing them as any kind of organism with a mental capacity is just you know, an extreme form of, and I think it's called anthropodenialism. First of all, was one of those people who coined the term, and I agree with that, like an extreme form of it is just like they're not like humans, they lack all kinds of capacity, mental capacity. I think that's too much. But I but going to the other side, going overboard with the idea of anthropomorphism, and then just saying that they're just like human babies is also not very, I mean, obviously scientifically accurate, but also taking away something from their from their mental capacity. I mean, they're not stupid.

Kristiina Wilson 44:47

They're not stupid, they know that you're not their mother. You're clearly very, very different. Also, this idea that cats think that you're just a big cat. Like, no, I don't think so. I like yeah, again, we don't know, but like you smell different, you look different, your communication style is different. You're not showing them your butthole all the time unless you're a real weirdo. And then like you need some help if you're doing that. Yeah, you don't use litter bottles.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 45:11

There are people out there being that right now. I I I I I'm 100% sure of it. I don't think it's just a conjecture. I think I think it's going on somewhere as we speak right now. Um, anyway.

Kristiina Wilson 45:24

No, it's awful, but yeah, just this kind of thinking, it's also it's so narcissistic on the part of people. It it just it really drives me insane.

Speaker 45:35

So yeah.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 45:37

And the only thing that I think most people agree on when it comes to needing behavior or the needing behavior as we understand it is just like it has positive balance. There's something positive.

Kristiina Wilson 45:49

Yeah.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 45:49

I think that's what it feels like to them. Yeah. Something positive. But they do, you know, there's there's some kind of a sexual aspect to it. Some had a little bit of aggressive aspect to it. Sometimes it's just like it sometimes to me it feels like greeting. But but you know, yeah, no idea. This is just it's it's it's a very difficult thing, I think, to study in cats, but but that doesn't stop us from trying.

Speaker 46:17

Yeah. But but yeah. That's true.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 46:20

Shouldn't at least stop us from trying. But yeah, again, like to wrap it up, I mean, and for this question, I think we have we do have a really good ethogram. I think we it's revised recently, a year ago, a year or two ago. There was a study published in in The Animal, and then they have a newly revised ethnogram for for cats, like all kinds of behaviors that they exhibit. And I think that's great. And I think the next step should be just like trying to understand the functionality of it or what it feels like for them to actually have those kinds of behaviors, the cognitive side of things and the functional side of things. And functionality is again difficult to study in cats, too, because they're not necessarily under the strong selective pressure of natural selection. We do have our own selective pressures that we implement them, but they're again, I don't think they are that pressured by the environmental factors anymore, at least. So all kinds of variation going on in cats, and that's that makes it a little bit difficult, but also quite fascinating. Uh so any other questions?

Kristiina Wilson 47:25

Um Yeah, I think my I think my last um question would be what do your findings suggest for cat guardians who want to strengthen their bond with their cats? Is there anything that people should be doing?

Dr. Kaan Kerman 47:37

Yeah. Um well, listen to your cat. I think that's one of the things that that you should be doing. I think that's one of the things that that uh we can, you know, like uh one of the main conclusions that we can draw from the study is that, again, as I said earlier, is that cats are great learners, right? Um, and whatever we do in our homes, it has an effect on cats, right? So cats are not just, you know, automatons, just reacting to things. And and cats are not like humans as well. They're not human beings. So we need to put a little bit of effort into their worlds, into their minds. And like when whenever they're trying to greet us, focus on those things that they're doing. And this is something that I constantly am exposed to, right? I mean, I learn every time when I interact with my cat. Um, and it and and I think this is the same for many cat owners and and people who are you know caregivers for cats. Just just listen to their needs and and and and and you know, um their their expectations, so to speak. And sometimes it's quite obvious. Sometimes it's quite obvious. We're just missing that. Right. But we just we just get used to that so much that we just sometimes think that that's not really that obvious. But yeah, pay attention.

Kristiina Wilson 49:01

That's great advice. I mean, that's that's the best advice, honestly, I think, for for cat cat people. So thank you so much. This was such a fun discussion. I had such a nice time talking to you, and yeah, I I think we came up with some some great ideas, and yeah, that's that's yeah, yeah.

Dr. Kaan Kerman 49:19

It was I mean, thank you for your invitation. It was just a wonderful thing to talk about. Um, and and um and we definitely need to think about some some of those ideas in detail.

Kristiina Wilson 49:34

Later, thanks so much for listening to the show. If you're looking for one-on-one support with behavior issues like litter box problems, aggression, anxiety, or multicat dynamics, you can find me through my behavior consulting business, Catitude Adjustment, at catitude adjustment.com. If you like the episode, please consider leaving a rating or review. It really helps us grow. For more episodes, show notes, and resources, head to Hissandtell Podcast.com. Huge thanks to Cat Beats for the music, and I'll see you next time.