Overview

• Researchers presented 30 domestic cats with owner and stranger scent samples and found cats sniffed unfamiliar odors twice as long as familiar ones.
• Cats initially favor their right nostril when encountering new human scents before shifting to the left as they grow accustomed to the smell.
• After sniffing samples, cats rubbed their faces against the scent source to deposit their own scent, suggesting that exploratory sniffing triggers marking behavior.
• Male cats with neurotic personalities repeatedly re-sniffed samples more often than their social counterparts, highlighting personality influences on olfactory investigation.
• The study by Yutaro Miyairi’s team at the University of Tokyo was published in PLOS ONE in May 2025 and advances understanding of feline social cognition.