As predators ourselves, humans share some vision characteristics with cats. We have eyes on the front of our heads, for binocular vision and depth perception. We both have good peripheral vision. We both see color.
But cats see the world very differently from the way we do.
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Light intensity. We have some rods, and lots of cones. Cats have some cones, and lots of rods.
Cones are the retinal cells which work better in bright light, and are fussy about color. Rods are the retinal cells which work better in dim light, and have less color differentiation. Cats see far better in dim light because of their abundance of rods, and their reflective layer known as a tapetum lucidum.
This is what gives cat eyes their distinctive flash when struck by a light source at night. Any light reaching their eyes can “bounce back” from this reflective layer behind the retina to give any rods another shot at seeing something.
However, this same layer lets the cat’s eyes be easily overwhelmed by too much light. This lowers their visual acuity compared to ours; cats have difficulty with fine detail. This is also why our domestic cats have a slitted iris instead of a round one, like humans and the big cats of the genus Panthera (leopard, lion, tiger, jaguar.) The vertical iris allows cats to “fine tune” the amount of light which falls on their retina.
Cats can see in very dim light; but not in total darkness. There has to be some light in the environment. However, they can see in what humans think is total darkness; simply because our eyes are not as sensitive on the low end of light intensity.
What it means to our relationship: Cats are going to be lying in a dim hallway confident that we can see them, because they see us so well. We will be in a bright room thinking cats are seeing things as well as we are. We should remember that the more narrow and slit-like their pupils, the less well our cat can see.
Vision augmentation. Our vision is capable of near and far focusing. Cats do less well with this, especially when objects are very close. So cats have a barrel cortex in their brain that is mapped very similarly to their visual cortex. This brain area is exclusively for understanding the input they get from their whiskers; both the facial kind, and the ones on their paws.
By combining their visual input with these “sense detectors,” cats can receive information about objects in their environment, without actually seeing them.
What it means to our relationship: We don’t have to worry when our cat can’t see something “right under their nose.” They literally cannot see something there, relying on their sense of smell and their sensitive whiskers instead.
Treat their whiskers as the delicate sense organs they really are. While they enjoy gentle stroking, don’t ever pull on their whiskers, or treat them roughly.
Object discrimination. The most important thing to understand about a cat’s vision is how sensitive it is to motion; and how relatively insensitive it is regarding contrast.
We get sharp, central vision from our fovea. Cats don’t have one. Instead, they have a visual streak, a band of vision which can see colors, especially on the blue-violet end of the visual spectrum.
So cats are not about the details. Cats are all about what the details are doing. We often think our cat is “staring at nothing” when our cat is staring at movement literally too small for us to see. That’s how good their movement detection is.
Their vision is actually blurred at the edges; they are looking for movement with their whole visual field. Their finest discrimination is between six and twenty feet. This is another reason why they keep their distance from strangers. They can keep an “eye on them” better with some space between.
Cats have a unique cornea, optimized for a dry environment, that does not require the same degree of blinking, and lubrication, that our corneas do. This is why cats always win a staring contest.
What it means to our relationship: Cats can become disconcerted by a fixed stare, but that’s only because they cannot detect our expression while it is static. Among themselves, cats do not use fixed expressions. They are always flicking ears, squinting eyes, or moving whiskers.
We can see this reaction when we stare at a cat, then make the slightest movement with our features. This is what the cat will focus on. This is how the cat gets feedback from us.
This is also why our body language is such an important part of our cat communication.
Cats see volumes in our slightest gesture or the merest movement in our faces. The more we try to get our points across with movement, the better our cat is able to “see” what we mean.
When we remember these big differences in the way we see the world, we and our cats will find each other less puzzling.
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There’s more ways to understand our cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my posts on WHY CATS DO THAT.
Oh how cool! I hope you do more like this with their other senses! I am fascinated by animals’ perception of the world.
Funny and cute story: Our kitty is black and very long-furred meaning she doesn’t reflect even the very little light a shorthaired glossy cat would. For her entire young adulthood she was horrified and confused when we would grab her up thinking she was laundry (we have lots of black shirts). Perversely, she sleeps in laundry baskets (which could easily have become tragic, but we always put the clothes in by hand one by one anyhow — my mom lost a cat to a dryer, and I have no desire to have that happen to me). The only way to find her in the evening or at night was to kiss-call and see if any random “tee shirt” suddenly opened its shiny little eyes.
Anyway, after about three years of this she learned something. Whenever she didn’t want to be found, she would run under a chair or a piece of furniture, hunker up in a really irregular shape, and then she would CLOSE HER EYES. She was not sleeping or relaxing, she was impersonating a shirt, and she had figured out that it was her eyes that gave her away. She evaded capture for a vet trip for half an hour this way once. Smart cat.
So, yeah, you have to be careful of cats in the near-dark, especially if they are laundry-colored. *lol*
I’ve noticed that two of ours don’t like the TV, but one of ours really, really loves to watch movies with really saturated, bright colors, or movies with lots of green and blue. She loves Phantom of the Opera and she REALLY loves Prince Caspian, and all the scenes in the green, green woods. Underworld, which was processed to be very blue/green bored her, though. I think it was that there wasn’t much contrast — the whole movie was really dark.
We have a huge plasma-screen TV, and what with the way it works and how cats’ eyes work, I think she can see that image better than a CRT tube type TV, which has a refresh rate that works with our human eyes, but might not do so well with a cat’s vision (maybe leading them to experience gaps or lines or jumping images). Also, larger areas of color are going to be easier to see, just like when we are in dim light it’s easier to see what color a thing is if it’s big.
Fascinating stuff. It’s amazing what you can learn about how a cat sees or experiences other senses just by watching what they do. They’re like candy for the amateur naturalist’s brain. Fascinating animals.
This was really interesting. I did know that cats love to be outside at night but I didn’t know they couldn’t see as well in the bright light. No wonder they sleep all day.
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I used to throw treats down the uncarpeted back hallway at night, and Kill Kill always zeroed right in on them–unless they stopped moving before she grabbed them. One time the treat was right between her front paws, but it might as well have been in Earth orbit for all she saw of it.
DJ has just discovered the Amazing Laser Pointer Dot, Byron’s favorite old toy. I run it across the floor from my chair to the litter box 10 feet away and then back. DJ always loses it on the turnaround. Byron can follow it across the floor, up walls and onto the ceiling without missing a beat, and has since he was 7 weeks old. I think this is because he’s deaf, missing a cat’s best-developed sense, and his eyesight has improved to compensate. I used to think that he was taller than her, then realized that it was because he was holding his head higher. He led with his eyes, and she with her ears.
To clarify:
Byron can follow it across the floor, up walls and onto the ceiling
Umm, I meant that he chases the laser dot across the floor and up walls. He follows it with his eyes after that, and doesn’t actually climb across the ceiling. Imagine what terrifying 2AM pounces kittens would surprise us with if they could!
Researching this post gave me a lot of insight into how cats would “lose” the treats under their chin, and how a hat would puzzle them, a lot of little things like that. I was aware of how attuned they are to motion; I saw one tracking a lizard with good camouflage, and they would only see it when it moved.