As someone who lives with sight-compromised cat like Ashton, I notice every day how she compensates for her lack of depth perception with other senses and workaround behaviors. So I was really interested to read that the University of Lincoln in the UK had done a study of whether cats prefer using their sense of sight or smell.
In the study, the researchers set up a maze with a T shaped decision point where the cats would have to go right or left. The cats learned that a certain colored symbol and scent at the junction pointed them to the direction in the maze where they would receive food, and other colored symbol and scent indicated that there would be no food found down that branch of the maze. Once the cats learned how to read the signs to tell them which direction to go, the scent and visual symbols were swapped, so the scent that indicated the direction with the food was paired with the visual symbol that indicated no food, and vice versa.
The researches learned that most cats in their study had a significant preference for using either their sense of smell or sight. The majority of cats used their vision more than sense of smell. It also found that a minority of cats show a preference for using their sense of smell rather than their sight when taking cues from the environment.
The study observes that cats who show a bias for their sense of smell might be the ones who respond to stress in their environment by urine marking, and they suggest a future study of pairs of cats who live together where one sprays and the other doesn’t to see if this preference for scent over vision may correlate to cats who spray.
I hope the University of Lincoln does that followup study, because it could have big implications for helping understand feline behavior better. In the meantime, I’m confident that Ashton, for her part, is one of the cats who prefers using her sense of smell as an indicator. We’ll never know if she would have had that bias if she had two working eyes, but her super-sniffer makes up for her lack of binocular vision.
Do any of your cats obviously have a bias for using their sense of smell over sight, or vice versa?
Reference and further reading:
Applied Animal Behavior Science, Individual differences in visual and olfactory cue preference and use by cats (Felis Catus)
Photo credits:
Wikimedia Commons, Cats Eye
Wikimedia Commons, Cat’s Nose
Flickr, Roy Montogmery
That is interesting the scent over sight idea. I think that is very true plus a cat’s hearing is very important too. I watch my cats outside and if there is a strange noise they all sit up and look in the same direction and I do believe that the cats outside stay fairly safe just from their hearing. Great post and very interesting about the spraying.
Very interesting. We seem to do a lot of sniffing all the time. The mom is always asking us what we’re smelling. So we guess we probably prefer smell to sight.
Oh that is very interesting. When Mom is on the floor stretching, she loves it when I come up to her with my sweet itty bitty kitty breath sniffin’ on her face. She says I blow little puffs of all over her face as I sniff. I’m for sure a scent critter.
Hugs madi your bfff
That is very interesting but so far I like to see what I’m smelling!
That is very interesting. I’s like to use all my senses…. specially if Giant Lady brings out tiny Marshmallows!
Luvs,
Rose~ the adult kitten
Ellie and Allie are more scent oriented…Raz is very much sight oriented.
The Florida Furkids
That’s so interesting! I would say Mudpie definitely is more sight oriented.
that is interesting…mom said she is going to start watching us more closely.
This is super interesting. With two sprayers in my house, I sure would like to be included in the follow-up study. I really was surprised to read that more cats use their sense of sight. If their is a correlation to scent use and spraying, out of 17 cats I have had only two that use scent over sight. XOCK, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo
That’s very interesting ! It’s hard to say for Mum, she’ll have to look at us more closely ! Purrs
guys….round heer we R scent oriented…
all oh uz…..
we gotta smell everee thing N smell it again; N lotz oh times de ole adage
….look at de werd we just used !!!!…de ole adage; a cat wont eat what
a cat can’t smell…holds troo….coz if de canned goodz R strait outta de fridge
we willna eat em til they iz room temperchurez !!
🙂 ♥♥♥
Katie seems both really. Very interesting article and thank you.
I’m not sure we use one over the other. One of my mom’s original cats (a long long time ago) could hear Fig Newtons, though. I wonder what the researchers would say about that!
I was sure cats used smell more than sight cos our eyes are always working. Since I have allergies, my sense of smell is compromised which is prolly why I don’t appreciate nip.
Wow, this is fascinating! And my human was really surprised by the sight thing, she she has always believed that we cats use our sense of hearing and smell more than our sight.
I agree with Summer’s assumption. I know I am extremely smell and sound sensitive. Interesting study.
Sweet Pea must be a “smeller”–she knows tuna from a sound sleep three rooms away!
We know the paw wave would work on Mom Paula!
My “search & rescue cat” Henry is DEFINITELY a “smeller” which is what made me take note of him when we first met.
He is SO scent focused Ive been able to take that preference and train him to track lost cats with me.
And YES very interesting on the observation that scent cats spray when stressed. I have found this to be true. At least it’s a super clear way to KNOW what is going on with him and take action to solve it!
One of our cats is always sniffing you can see her nose and head bobbing up and down as she sniffs the air moving left to right like a radar sensor at the airport might checking the air in all directions. Our first cat, inherited from a deceased relative, also did this. We have two young cats now and the long haired one sniffs the other does only a little. Our first cat was long haired also. Do long haired cats sniff and short haired ones not so much