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Animal play is fun, fair, chaotic and serious. The many ways in which non-human animals (animals) play with each other continue to intrigue many people – researchers, citizen scientists and those who simply want to know what animals do, think and feel when they play – because individuals of many different species “just want to have fun” to have.”
It’s a no-brainer: cats, dogs, and many other non-human animals love to play with their friends in all kinds of ways, and they enjoy doing it. In an essay called “Playtime fun for dogs“In an issue of Current biology dedicated to the biology of pleasure (to see Also), I cover much of what we know about social play in dogs, and other essays discuss fun in various mammals as well as birds, fish, reptiles, and invertebrates.1
It is important that play remains fun while individuals struggle mightily and feverishly zoom here and there. Many types of play involve actions from different contexts, including aggression, predation, and reproduction. The players need to be able to say to others, “I want to play with you, not fight, eat you or mate with you.” Likewise, if the play gets rough and out of hand, they should also tell their playmate(s), “This is play, I still want to play” or apologize and say something like “I’m sorry for hurting you.” have bitten so hard or that I have been on horseback.” You, let’s keep playing.”
Playing is a kaleidoscope of the senses. When canines, felines, and other animals play, they use actions such as forceful biting, mounting, and hitting with the body that can easily be misinterpreted by the participants. Research shows that many animals, including companion dogs, work hard to play fair by using ‘the golden rules of the game’: ask first and communicate clearly; mind your manners; admit when you are wrong; and be fair – to negotiate the game carefully to prevent, for example, rough play from escalating into serious fighting.
Cats use facial expressions to get along, have fun and play fair
The ways in which pet cats play are receiving increasing attention. For example, we can accurately judge whether cats are playing or fighting. If cats “go crazy” when they play, they are just cats and not psychopaths. As someone who has focused on playing with dogs and their wild relatives, including coyotes and wolves, I was very interested in a recent detailed study in cats entitled “Computational investigation of the social function of facial signals of domestic catsIt showed that romping cats use facial cues when they play and also that they mirror each other’s facial expressions to maintain a play mood – to agree to play fairly and get along.2 A summary of this research is available in an essay by Christa Lesté-Lasserre called “Copy cats: Kittens mirror each other’s faces to get along.”
To study cats’ facial expressions while cats were playing, the researchers filmed cats at the CatCafe Lounge in Los Angeles, California. Details are available in the research article and in Lesté-Lasserre’s piece, so a quick summary of how the research was conducted is that cats were filmed when they came into contact with each other and the encounters were scored as being: affiliative (“grooming and/or physical contact, such as resting together, nose sniffing, allorubbing and vertical tail positioning”) or non-affiliate (“vigilance behaviors such as staring and slow approaches; defensive posturing such as stiffening and piloerection; and fight-related behaviors such as biting, hissing, scratching and swatting”). Facial expressions were studied using a method called the Cat Facial Action Coding System (CatFACS) and the researchers used 48 facial markers to analyze facial expressions. Machine learning models were then used to classify the interactions as affiliative or non-affiliative and to learn whether the cats were mimicking each other using a method called type matching.
The results of this time-consuming and labor-intensive research are extremely interesting and important. Simply put, data shows that cats mirror each other’s facial expressions, allowing them to play fairly and get along. The researchers write:
“Our analysis suggests that domestic cats exhibit faster facial mimicry in affiliative contexts than non-affiliative contexts, which is consistent with the proposed function of mimicry. Furthermore, we found that ear movements (such as EAD103 and EAD104) are very sensitive to rapid movements.” Our research introduces new possibilities for analyzing cat facial cues and investigating shared moods with innovative AI-based approaches.
This research also has practical applications in the field regarding cat welfare. Lesté-Lasserre notes:
“Studies like these may one day help owners choose good feline partners for their cats, or know when to intervene,” Francesconi [one of the researchers] say. ‘Using AI to monitor cats’ RFM has a lot of practical potential,’ she says, ‘especially when it comes to understanding their responses and needs, preventing conflict and improving their welfare.’”
Playing is fun, but studying isn’t always so much fun, but the hard work has to be done
As someone who has studied play for decades, I find this study to be one of the most important to appear in a long time. Countless animals, including humans, love to play, but studying play can be time-consuming and, frankly, so annoying that you’ll say, “This is really not fun!” I remember asking students if they would help me study play in dogs, coyotes, and wolves, and far too many people said they would. I also remember how, after analyzing movies frame by frame, quite a few said it wasn’t that fun and that they would rather watch the animals play and not go blind trying to figure out what they were doing and Why.
I am very pleased that the researchers who conducted this study in cats took the time to do what needed to be done, and I look forward to further comparative work in this area. There are no alternatives to doing what it takes to learn about the minute details of how animals communicate with each other in different contexts. This study of play opens the door to broader comparative research that focuses on the way animals talk to each other in many of the different situations they encounter, including when they just want to ‘have fun’ and there can be serious negative consequences if they don’t share that feeling and agree to play fair.
