I don’t know, maybe the researchers were stroking them wrong? I’ve notice that cats don’t really like to be just “stroked”, per se, but they like to be “scratched”. Try to pet a cat front to back, along the grain of the fur, and often they will move around and try to get your hand some other place that they want you to be rubbing or scratching for them. Behind the ears is always a crowd pleaser.
To some extent, I would say that you're right about this, but I put it down to the fact that the cat knows that, once you get started stroking it, it can move to wherever it wants and manuver you into giving it a stroke or scratch in just the right place.
My Gracie loves to be stroked and then scratched behind the ears. Her reaction to being stroked from behind the ears to the base of her tail gave rise to her nickname ...
Elevator Butt ...