Lou Ann Wyckoff cradled the gray-and-white cat in her lap. She scratched the back of its head and the cat purred, eyes closed. When she stopped petting the cat, it opened its green eyes and meowed for more.

“They are so sweet, they are so sweet,” said Ms. Wyckoff, a 79-year-old former opera singer. “The babies wake up and talk to the ladies, ‘Bring the babies.’”

Next to Ms. Wyckoff, a 99-year-old woman in a purple sweater stroked an orange-and-white cat. It rolled on its back, exposing its belly. Another woman, in a red sweater, ran her hand gently down her cat’s back, whispering to it in German.

The cats were actually cat-size robots. Their admirers were elderly residents of the Memory Care wing at Hebrew Home at Riverdale in the Bronx: people with varying degrees of dementia and Alzheimer’s.