Revista Cienﬁca, FCV-LUZ / Vol. XXXV Recibido: 23/12/2024 Aprobado: 10/03/2025 Publicado: 30/04/2025 hps://doi.org/10.52973/rcfcv-e35599 UNIVERSIDAD DEL ZULIA Serbiluz Sistema de Servicios Bibliotecarios y de Información Biblioteca Digital Repositorio Académico 1 of 6 Levels of understanding cat body language of Cat owners in Türkiye Niveles de Comprensión del Lenguaje Corporal de Los Dueños de Gatos en Turquía Onur Erzurum 1 * , Tamer Kayar 2 ¹Selcuk University, Karapınar Aydoğanlar Vocaonal School, Veterinary Department, Konya, Türkiye. ²Aksaray University, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Animal Science, Aksaray, Türkiye. *Corresponding author: onurerzurum@selcuk.edu.tr ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to reveal how much the expressions cats show using their bodies are understood by their owners. A face-to-face survey was conducted on 1,459 cat owners between the year of ages 18-65 and living in seven regions of Türkiye. The parcipants were determined from people who come to animal hospitals or pet clinics and have cats at home, and these people parcipated in the survey voluntarily. When the distribuon of the parcipants according to regions is analysed, the highest parcipaon was from the Central Anatolia Region with 42.83%. The age group with the highest parcipaon was the 18-25 age group. Among the quesons in the survey, the ones with the highest percentage of correct answers were “Extremely Terriﬁed” and “Disgusted,” while the queson that received the most incorrect responses was “Anxious”. The rates of correct responses were nearly idencal for both women (48.95) and men (48.03%). Among the parcipants of the survey, only one person answered all quesons correctly. The region with the highest percentage of correct answers is Central Anatolia. Kruskal-Wallis test was performed in order to reveal the diﬀerence in the correct answers about the body language of cats according to age. Cat owners are not suﬃcient to understand the body language of cats and for this reason, they need to be informed and trained by experts on the body language of cats. When the literature review was conducted on the understanding of cat body language by cat owners, no other study covering the whole of Türkiye was found. Key words: Behaviour; Body language; Cat; Observaon; Türkiye RESUMEN El objevo de este estudio fue determinar en qué medida los dueños de gatos comprenden las expresiones corporales que estos muestran. Se realizó una encuesta presencial a 1,459 dueños de gatos entre 18 y 65 años de edad, residentes en las siete regiones de Turquía. Los parcipantes fueron seleccionados entre personas que asisan a hospitales veterinarios o clínicas para mascotas y que tenían gatos en casa; todos parciparon de forma voluntaria. Al analizar la distribución regional de los parcipantes, la mayor parcipación provino de la Región de Anatolia Central (42,83%). El grupo etario con mayor representación fue el de 18 a 25 años. Entre las preguntas de la encuesta, las que obtuvieron el mayor porcentaje de respuestas correctas fueron “Extremadamente aterrorizado” y “Asqueado,” mientras que la pregunta con más errores fue “Ansioso.” Los porcentajes de respuestas correctas fueron casi idéncos entre mujeres (48,95%) y hombres (48,03%). Solo un parcipante respondió correctamente a todas las preguntas. La región con el mayor porcentaje de respuestas correctas fue Anatolia Central. Se realizó la prueba de Kruskal-Wallis para revelar la diferencia en las respuestas correctas sobre el lenguaje corporal de los gatos en función de la edad. Se concluyó que los dueños de gatos no comprenden suﬁcientemente el lenguaje corporal de sus mascotas, por lo que necesitan ser informados y formados por expertos en este tema. En la revisión bibliográﬁca sobre la comprensión del lenguaje corporal felino en Turquía, no se encontraron estudios previos que abarcaran todo el país. Palabras clave: Comportamiento; Lenguaje corporal; Gato; Observa- ción; Turquía

Levels of Understanding Cat Body Language / Erzurum and Kayar UNIVERSIDAD DEL ZULIA Serbiluz Sistema de Servicios Bibliotecarios y de Información Biblioteca Digital Repositorio Académico INTRODUCTION Cat owners generally express curiosity about understanding their cats’ emoons [1]. While animals cannot communicate verbally with humans, they convey their feelings through non- verbal cues, including body language and facial expressions [2]. Understanding the signals that cats provide facilitates the establishment of a strong bond with them and paves the way for eﬀecve communicaon [3]. Cats seek to be understood by their owners through a range of visual cues involving their ears, tails, eyes, mouths, and whiskers. For instance, dilated pupils can indicate fear, interest, aggression, or excitement, while parally closed eyes suggest relaxaon and aﬀecon [4]. A cat that holds its tail up expresses happiness and conﬁdence, whereas a rapidly wagging tail indicates agression [5]. Cats with puﬀed-up tails held upright convey a sense of being large and impressive, while those with tails that curve like a queson mark and are held upright express friendliness and curiosity [6]. Cats are not social animals that move in groups; instead, they behave individually. Their ability to adapt to home environments and communicate with humans contributes to their high demand as pets [7 , 8 , 9 , 10]. Cats can convey various signals using diﬀerent parts of their bodies. Understanding their body language requires a detailed examinaon of each body part, such as the eyes, ears, tail, and whiskers [11 , 12]. Interacons with cats not only enhance their well-being but are also said to contribute economically [13]. In environments where cats live under good welfare condions, stress related disorders such as voming, decreased appete, and random urinaon/defecaon are likely to decrease, thereby reducing the need for veterinary support and minimizing related costs [14]. Surveys and stascal studies in this ﬁeld suggest that establishing posive interacons can lead to happier relaonships [15]. It is noted that pets provide signiﬁcant beneﬁts, including reducing stress levels in humans, enhancing coping abilies in challenging life situaons, and decreasing the likelihood of developing mental health disorders related to depression [16 , 17 , 18]. Various surveys and stascal studies have invesgated the eﬀects of cats on reducing human stress. When evaluated separately, these eﬀects can be ranked as follows: 68% for cuddling, 67% for inducing laughter, and 61% for alleviang loneliness [19]. One of the easy ways to alleviate loneliness for humans is through the adopon of pets. Parcularly aﬅer the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in the rate of cat adopons as people seek companionship. In Türkiye, the cat populaon was reported to be 3.8 million in 2019, represenng 10% of the populaon of 85 million; by 2023, the cat populaon increased to 4.6 million, with the proporon of cats kept as pets rising to 15% [20 , 21]. There are various studies conducted by researchers on cat behavior. Fawzy et al. [22] ulized the deep learning method YOLOv8 to understand cats’ body language. This method involved calculang the posions of cats’ mouths, tails, and eyes to assess their body postures through object recognion. Another study by Erten et al. [12] was conducted with 93 cat owners in Elazığ. In this study, cat owners were asked survey quesons related to body language. The queson that received the highest correct response rate was “disgusted,” with an accuracy of 84.9%, while the queson with the lowest correct response rate was “excited,” at 19.4%. In another study, Van Belle et al. [23] conducted a survey supported by videos taken by cat owners. This research evaluated behaviors such as head rubbing, allogrooming, sleeping together, tail-up greengs, and playfulness. The behavior most frequently misinterpreted by parcipants was head rubbing, followed by allogrooming. This study aims to determine the socio-demographic characteriscs of cat owners in Türkiye and the extent to which they understand the body language of the cats they keep at home. There is no other study in the literature covering the whole of Türkiye. MATERİALS AND METHODS The material of the study consisted of the data obtained from 1,459 randomly selected individuals aged between 18 and 65, living in diﬀerent regions of Turkey (Aegean, Central Anatolia, Marmara, Eastern Anatolia, South Eastern Anatolia, Mediterranean and Black Sea regions), who responded to a face-to-face and online quesonnaire. 645 men and 814 women parcipated in the study. The survey was conducted between July and October 2024. In order to carry out the study, support was received from the students of the Veterinary Medicine Department of Selcuk University Karapınar Aydoğanlar Vocaonal School and the people who would parcipate in the survey were reached. According to European Pet Food Industry Federaon (FEDIAF) [21], the number of individuals who own cats and dogs in Turkey is 4,660.00. Given that all the answers given by cat owners are equally important and have an equal chance of being correct, the “Simple Random Sampling” method was selected. Accordingly, when the sample size with a 95% conﬁdence interval and a 5% margin of error was calculated, it was determined that a minimum of 384 parcipants would be required. The 3 quesons in the ﬁrst part of the quesonnaire were used to analyse the socio-demographic structure and the 20 quesons in the second part were used to measure the extent to which the body language of cats could be understood by their owners. The quesons posed to the parcipants of this study consisted of four possible answers, of which only one was correct. The parcipants were presented with images of cats and requested that they select one opon that best represented the image. Chin [24] was used for the quesons of the quesonnaire form applied to understand the body language of cats. In addion, the quesons used in the quesonnaire study have been used in other similar studies [12 , 25]. Given the non-parametric nature of the data and the presence of categorical variables, it was deemed appropriate to undertake the Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests. These tests facilitate the determinaon of stascally signiﬁcant diﬀerences between groups. Subsequent post hoc analyses are required to idenfy the groups that are disnguishable. Consequently, the Tamhane post hoc test was employed, a method that is ulised in scenarios where variance homogeneity is not aained, yet it oﬀers reliable results in mulple comparisons [26]. RESULTS AND DİSCUSSİON The age distribuon of parcipants by gender is given in TABLE I. The highest parcipaon rate was among women aged 18-25, followed by men aged 18-25. 2 of 6

Revista Cienﬁca, FCV-LUZ / Vol. XXXV UNIVERSIDAD DEL ZULIA Serbiluz Sistema de Servicios Bibliotecarios y de Información Biblioteca Digital Repositorio Académico TABLE I. Distribuon of parcipants by age Age range Male Female 18-25 413 574 26-35 108 125 36-45 39 75 46-55 30 32 56-65 55 8 Total 645 814 The age distribuon of the parcipants by region is given in TABLE II. The highest parcipaon in the survey was among women and men aged 18-25 in the Central Anatolia Region. The lowest parcipaon was among parcipants aged 46-55 in the Southeastern Anatolia region. TABLE II. Distribuon of parcipants’ ages according to regions Aegean Central Anatolia Marmara Eastern Anatolia Southeastern Anatolia Mediterrenian Black Sea Total Male 18-25 48 186 41 23 38 55 22 413 26-35 5 59 11 4 7 10 12 108 36-45 3 11 6 5 3 6 5 39 46-55 6 16 1 2 0 4 1 30 56-65 11 9 6 7 4 13 5 55 Female 18-25 48 221 78 35 43 81 68 574 26-35 11 56 10 15 3 21 9 125 36-45 5 45 5 4 5 7 4 75 46-55 0 18 6 2 0 3 3 32 56-65 2 4 1 1 0 0 0 8 The queson that parcipants answered most correctly was “Extremely terriﬁed” and the queson they answered least correctly was “Anxious”. The number of correct answers to the queson “extremely terriﬁed” was given by 562 males (87.13%) and 725 females (89.07%). The number of incorrect answers to the queson “anxious” was given by 551 males (85.43%) and 739 females (90.66%). The percentages of correct and incorrect answers given to the other quesons are given in TABLE III by gender. There was only one person in the 18-25 age group who answered all quesons correctly. In this study, when evaluang the correct responses from women (48.94%) and men (48.18%), it was found that both genders exhibited nearly the same rate of correct answers. Köseman et al. [27] also noted that women provided more correct answers. The percentage of correct answers to the quesons was calculated according to age groups and is presented in TABLE IV. Accordingly, the 10th and 11th quesons were the most answered correctly by both genders. Parcipants correctly marked “Extremely Terriﬁed” for queson 10 and “Disgusted” for queson 11. In the calculaon made without age group, queson 10 was determined to be the queson with the most correct answers. TABLE III. Response rates for cats’ body language Images Male (%) Female (%) True False True False Interested 38.60 61.40 37.35 62.65 Aenve 47.60 52.40 58.85 41.15 Friendly 77.05 22.95 82.92 17.08 Content 42.95 57.05 44.23 55.77 Relaxed 17.52 82.48 19.53 80.47 Predatory 51.32 48.68 55.53 44.47 Conﬂicted 46.20 53.80 48.28 51.72 Frightened 60.78 39.22 66.34 33.66 Trusng 45.27 54.73 42.14 57.86 Super terriﬁed 87.13 12.87 89.07 10.93 Disgusted 56.59 43.41 72.24 27.26 This is mine 56.28 43.72 37.96 62.04 Playful 54.57 45.43 52.21 47.79 Excited 40.62 59.38 38.70 61.30 Relaxed 45.89 54.11 44.35 55.65 Anxious 59.69 40.31 60.20 39.80 Worried 15.66 84.34 13.39 86.61 Threatened 65.58 34.42 65.36 34.64 Terriﬁed 39.85 60.16 40.91 59.09 Irritated 14.42 85.43 9.34 90.66 3 of 6

Levels of Understanding Cat Body Language / Erzurum and Kayar UNIVERSIDAD DEL ZULIA Serbiluz Sistema de Servicios Bibliotecarios y de Información Biblioteca Digital Repositorio Académico TABLE IV. Quesons with the highest number of correct answers and their rates according to gender and age groups Age Percent (%) Quesons Male 18-25 82.08 11 26-35 85.19 10 – 11 36-45 87.18 10 – 11 46-55 90.00 11 56-65 12.73 11 Female 18-25 92.33 11 26-35 88.88 11 36-45 92.00 11 46-55 93.75 11 56-65 87.50 10 In the study conducted by Köseman et al. [27], the queson that parcipants answered correctly the most closely mirrored those in this study, with the responses “Extremely Terriﬁed” and “Disgusted” being the most common. When TABLE V is examined, according to the results of the analysis of the diﬀerence between the correct answers given to the quesons about the body language of cats according to age, a signiﬁcant diﬀerence was found between the ages (P<0.05). According to the results of the Post-Hoc analysis performed to determine the diﬀerence between the ages of this variable, it was found that there was a diﬀerence between the ages of 18-25 and 36-45 (P=0.037), 18-25 and 46-55 (P=0.024) and 18-25 and 56-65 (P=0.016). This variaon may be aributed to familiarity, awareness, or enhanced observaonal skills of individuals in diﬀerent age groups regarding cat behavior. TABLE V. Kruskal-Wallis test values for the diﬀerence of cat body language parameter according to age Age range 18-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 P Diﬀerent 684±637.83 166.93±185.98 82.07±108.99 43.36±54.09 79±17.64 .000 1-3 1-4 1-5 1: 18-25, 2: 26-35, 3: 36-45, 4: 46-55, 5: 56-65 TABLE VI. Kruskal-Wallis test values for diﬀerences in body language parameters of cats according to regions Regions Med EA A SA CA BS M p 180,50±267.75 83.30±119.14 110.60±154.74 94.10±152.80 638.30±805.68 102±173.65 169.80±260.10 .0507 BS: Black Sea, CA: Central Anatolia, EA: Eastern Anatolia, E: Aegean, M: Marmara, MED: Mediterranean, SA: Southeastern Anatolia When the TABLE VI is examined, according to the results of the analyses on the diﬀerence of cat body language variable according to regions, no stascally signiﬁcant diﬀerence was found between the regions (P<0.05). TABLE VII. Mann-Whitney-U test values for the diﬀerence of cat body language parameter according to age Sex Male Female P 159.890 ± 335.135 234.57 ± 432.427 .676 When TABLE VII is examined, according to the results of the analyses on the diﬀerence of cat body language variable according to age, no stascally signiﬁcant diﬀerence was found between genders (P<0.05). The preponderance of Central Anatolia in parcipaon rates can be ascribed to the region’s level of urbanizaon, accessibility to educaonal resources, and the presence of major universies where veterinary and animal sciences are acvely pursued. Studies involving vocal and visual expressions of cats have shown that women tend to give higher rates of correct responses [28 , 29]. The fact that women give more correct answers in part is aributed to their greater communicaon and interacon with babies. The diﬀerent results found across studies may be aributed to the similarity of interests among parcipants and the design of quesons that do not emphasize gender diﬀerences [30 , 31 , 32]. It is suggested that the signiﬁcant majority of parcipants answering the 11th queson correctly may be related to the more intense visual reacons exhibited by cats. Addionally, the similarity between the way humans express their reacons— through facial expressions—toward food items they dislike and the way cats respond may have facilitated the parcipants’ ability to provide the correct answer. According to TABLE V, the diﬀerence detected between correct answers and age can be aributed to individuals in age groups being more familiar with cat behavior, their awareness or their advanced observaon skills. CONCLUSİON AND RECOMENDATIONS This study found that there was a diﬀerence between the age of cat owners and their level of understanding of cat body language. It was also found that there was no stascally signiﬁcant diﬀerence in the rate of correct answers according to age and region. The quesons that parcipants answered most correctly were “extremely frightened” and “anxious”. 4 of 6

Revista Cienﬁca, FCV-LUZ / Vol. XXXV UNIVERSIDAD DEL ZULIA Serbiluz Sistema de Servicios Bibliotecarios y de Información Biblioteca Digital Repositorio Académico Since cats have many expressions that need to be monitored and evaluated, it is recommended that owners receive training in cat behavior. Cats with owners who understand them beer will have increased happiness, peace and well-being. Communicaon between cats and their owners will improve and the bond between them will be strengthened. The reducon in stress levels in cats with beer understanding will strengthen their immune systems and make them more resistant to other physiological and metabolic disorders. Understanding body language will reduce punive approaches and behavioral problems and increase the level of trust in cats in their owners. Findings from studies conducted so far suggest that when cat owners are asked to respond to cat behavior based solely on visual cues and shapes, accuracy levels are relavely low. Therefore, future research examining human-cat interacons should include auditory signals and chemical cues in addion to visual and shape-based assessments to obtain more comprehensive results. Financial support This research received no grant from any funding agency/ sector. Conﬂict of Interest The authors declared that they have no conﬂict of interest. Ethical Statement This study was approved by the Selcuk University Animal Ex- periments Local Ethics Commiee (Approval no: 01.10.2024/11). BIBLIOGRAPHICS REFERENCES [1] Siniscalchi M, Laddago S, Quaranta A. Auditory lateralizaon of conspeciﬁc and heterospeciﬁc vocalizaons in cats. Laterality: Asymmetries of Brain, Behav. Cognit. [Internet]. 2016; 21(3):215-227. doi: hps://doi.org/ph5r [2] Quaranta A, d’Ingeo S, Amoruso R, Siniscalchi M. Emoon recognion in cats. Animals, [Internet]. 2020; 10(7):1107. doi: hps://doi.org/j34j [3] Hulick J. How to speak cat: A guide to decoding cat language by aline alexander newman. 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