Feline Faces
Did you know that cats have 276 distinct facial expressions? And even more interesting and complex, cats use their expressions differently depending on if they are interacting with their friends or not. Today's guest, Dr. Britt Florkiewicz, is a comparative and evolutionary psychologist who designed a study that uncovered facts like these. She went into a large cat Cafe and observed and recorded the cats as they communicated with one another and shares what she found out with us.
Listen to Episode #122 Now:
BIO:
I am a comparative & evolutionary psychologist currently researching the properties of animal facial signaling and its implications for the evolution of sociality, gestural communication, and human language. I work with various captive populations of non-human primates (platyrrhines, cercopithecoids, gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees) and non-primate mammals (cats and dogs). I use Facial Action Coding Systems (or FACS) to study the physical form of facial signals. The FACS are systematic and standardized methods for coding facial muscle movement produced during bouts of communication. Additional information about my current research projects is on the "Research Lab" web page.
I am currently an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Lyon College. I am also the Principal Investigator & Founder of the Lyon College Animal Behavior & Cognition Lab. I earned my B.A. in Anthropology from the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 2014, my M.A. in Anthropology from Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 2016, and my Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California Los Angeles in 2022. For my M.A., I researched the relationship between pair bond strength and facial signaling within multiple species of gibbons (Hylobates spp., Hoolock spp., and Nomascus spp.). For my Ph.D., I examined how facial signaling compares to other modes of communication (such as manual gesturing) in a captive group of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).
