Do Cats Have Emotions?

Pleasure

Pleasure appears to be an abstracted form of happiness/satisfaction which persists after the original stimulus has gone or which is felt in anticipation of an event. In many contexts, pleasure is a synonym for happiness/satisfaction. Pleasure can also occur through memory and through anticipation.

Sense of Humor

This is a tricky topic. The "smile" on a cat's face is due to conformation of its muzzle. A cat "smiles" with its eyes and with its tail. Observant owners soon learn to distinguish a cat's "happy face" from its "sad face". Cats do not tell jokes (certainly not that we know off) but they do engage in clownish behavior. A cat can suspend its adult behavior and revert to kitten behavior.

Scientists used to believe that a cat playing with its own reflection in a mirror or with a TV image is unable to distinguish an image from reality. Many still think that way. Pet cats learn very early on that reflections and TV are "not real". This doesn't stop them making use of them as play objects. Batting a moving object is instinctive. Batting a picture on a TV is a safe outlet for hunting behavior, but the cat doesn't expect to catch the object (unless it has never encountered the TV before).

Inexperienced cats and kittens expect to find the reflection cat behind the mirror. When the image puffs its tail and hisses (albeit silently) back at them, they may become startled. After a few unsuccessful checks behind the mirror (and the lack of any scent of the "other cat"), they accept the image as a plaything. Even experienced cats will occasionally search behind a mirror or TV in case the pretend prey has emerged from it.

It doesn't really expect to find anything, but it is always worthwhile checking just in case! Suspension of disbelief in this way is sometimes considered to be the feline sense of humor. It is an outlet for predatory behavior and it results in happiness. Whether it is genuinely humor is debatable.