Johnson Elizabeth A, Portillo Arianna, Bennett Nikki E, Gray Peter B
Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, United States of America.
PeerJ. 2021 Nov 12;9:e12393. doi: 10.7717/peerj.12393. eCollection 2021.
Extensive research has evaluated the involvement of the neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) in human social behaviors, including parent-infant relationships. Studies have investigated OT's connection to human attachment to nonhuman animals, with the majority of the literature focusing on domestic dogs (). Utilizing what is known about OT and its role in maternal-infant and human-dog bonding, we apply these frameworks to the study of human-domestic cat () interactions.
We investigated changes in salivary OT levels in 30 U.S. women of reproductive age before and after two conditions: reading a book (control) and interacting with their pet cat. Participant and cat behavioral patterns during the cat interaction condition were also quantified to determine if differences in women's OT concentrations were associated with specific human and cat behaviors.
Our results revealed no changes in women's OT levels during the cat interaction, relative to the control condition, and pre-cat interaction OT levels. However, differences in women's OT concentrations were correlated with some human-cat interactions (, positively with petting cat and cat approach initiation, negatively with cat agonistic behavior) but not all observed behaviors (, use of gentle or baby voice) coded during human-cat interactions.
This study is the first to explore women's OT in response to interactions with their pet cat and has identified distinct human and cat behaviors that influence OT release in humans.
广泛的研究评估了神经肽催产素（OT）在人类社会行为中的作用，包括母婴关系。已有研究探讨了OT与人类对非人类动物依恋的联系，大多数文献聚焦于家犬（此处原文括号内容缺失）。利用已知的OT及其在母婴和人犬关系中的作用，我们将这些框架应用于人类与家猫（此处原文括号内容缺失）互动的研究。
我们调查了30名美国育龄女性在两种情况下前后唾液中OT水平的变化：阅读书籍（对照）和与她们的宠物猫互动。还对猫互动过程中参与者和猫的行为模式进行了量化，以确定女性OT浓度的差异是否与特定的人类和猫的行为有关。
我们的结果显示，与对照条件和猫互动前的OT水平相比，女性在猫互动过程中的OT水平没有变化。然而，女性OT浓度的差异与一些人猫互动有关（此处原文括号内容缺失，正向相关于抚摸猫和猫主动靠近，负向相关于猫的攻击行为），但与人猫互动过程中编码的并非所有观察到的行为（此处原文括号内容缺失，如使用温柔或婴儿般的声音）都有关。
本研究首次探讨了女性在与宠物猫互动时的OT反应，并确定了影响人类OT释放的不同的人类和猫的行为。
