Should You Slow-Blink at Your Cat?

If you want a gentle way to say hello to a relaxed cat, try slowly narrowing your eyes and briefly closing them. Then give the cat room to respond, or not. A small set of experiments gives this familiar bit of cat advice some support: cats responded with eye movements of their own, and were more willing to approach an unfamiliar person after a slow-blink exchange.

That makes slow blinking worth trying as an invitation. It does not give us a translation for “I love you.” The cat has not signed off on that dictionary.

AI-generated editorial illustration. The scene is imagined, not a photograph of the study.

First, see whether the cat answers

Tasmin Humphrey and colleagues began with a question simpler than whether cats love us: do they change their eye movements when a person slow-blinks at them?

For their 2020 study, the researchers visited cats at home. Owners sat about a metre away, waited for their cat's attention, and slowly closed their eyes. In a comparison condition, the owner stayed in the room but did not interact with the cat. Each cat experienced both conditions, with the order varied across cats.

There were 21 cats from 14 households at the start. After excluding three cat–owner pairs with unusually extreme measurements, the analysis included 18 pairs. Cats narrowed their eyes more often during the slow-blink interaction. Half-blinks also increased overall, although that change was clearer in the male cats. Ordinary reflexive blinks did not change significantly.

The distinction matters. The researchers were coding specific movements of the eyelids, not treating every blink as a miniature declaration of affection.

And the cats could leave. An owner's trial ended if the cat walked away. Research into feline communication still had to accommodate the possibility that the participant had other plans.

Would a stranger get the same reception?

A cat responding to its owner might simply be reacting to a familiar routine. The second experiment introduced someone the cat had not met, then checked something more tangible than an answering blink: whether the cat moved toward her hand.

This time, 24 cats were recruited and 18 remained in the analysis after six were excluded as outliers. The researcher either performed slow blinks for a minute or held a neutral expression while looking slightly to the side of the cat. Each cat experienced both versions.

Afterward, she offered a hand. The researchers scored a head or body movement toward it as an approach, no movement as neutral, and movement away as avoidance. Cats had higher approach scores after the slow-blink condition. They also produced more half-blinks and eye narrowing themselves.

An approach could be as small as moving the head toward the offered hand. Nobody had to climb into a stranger's lap for the result to count.

There is an important wrinkle: the neutral face also involved looking away. The experiment therefore cannot cleanly separate the effect of the eyelid movements from differences in gaze or attention. The owners' displays in the first experiment varied too, including how much they talked to their cats.

These were small studies of pet cats with outdoor access, observed during brief interactions at home. They measured eye movements and immediate approach, not a stronger bond over the following weeks. The results support a friendly interpretation of slow blinking, while leaving the cat's precise emotional experience uncertain.

Try an invitation, then leave space

My practical suggestion is to choose a quiet moment when your cat is settled and can move away freely. From a comfortable distance, gently narrow your eyes and close them briefly when the cat looks at you. Then relax and wait. There is no need to turn it into a staring contest or keep repeating the gesture until you get the answer you wanted.

That is a low-pressure application of the research, not a tested bonding routine. If your cat turns away or leaves, let the interaction end. A blink back can be a pleasant exchange without becoming a score for how much your cat likes you.

The useful part of this advice is how little it asks of the other participant. You can offer a hello without immediately adding a hand, a hug, or an expectation. For once, being friendly can involve doing less.

The research

Tasmin Humphrey, Leanne Proops, Jemma Forman, Rebecca Spooner, and Karen McComb (2020). The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat–human communication. Scientific Reports, 10, 16503.

Read the open-access paper