I'm pretty sure they think of the person taking care of them as some analogous of a mother. We should be careful not to anthropomorphism their emotions as they are probably not quite as complex as we would like. They certainly have some degree of emotions though.

But they have no concept of "human" or "mother" so I would guess it is more like "thing stops hunger, thing warm, thing safe". Thus they bother you when they are hungry, sit on you when they are cold and come to you when they are afraid.

I think it depends a lot on the individual cat? In my experience, their attitudes towards humans can vary quite considerably.

Some are more aloof and independent and see their human as a source of food like you say.

But then I think about our current cat. He’s a rescue who’s clearly been through a lot on the streets. When I come home, he just wants to climb onto me and head butt and do that slow blink thing. He wants this more than food, even, which is a first for me.

When we were adopting him, we fostered first for a couple of weeks before he had to go in for a surgery, and in the week or so when e was boarded, the staff said he was wailing every night wanting to go home. So he had clearly developed an attachment to us that transcended simply wanting any human who provides food and shelter.

I mean it depends on the cat

I have a feral who acts like it's some great coincidence that she lives in the ultimate lap of developed world luxury and humans just happen to be there and no they can't touch her

I have two kitten brothers who only love because they are fed. If one of us starts being more regular about feeding them then that's their new best friend

I have an old lady cat who couldn't care less about food she just wants her belly rubbed and a friend to be with

My husband has his geriatric boy who I'm fairly certain is a small man in a cat suit. He keeps us all on a tight schedule of demands.

I've read that cats assume we are a giant, weird looking cat otherwise why are we feeding them? And they treat us as a parent causing them to stay in a juvenile state so they engage in play behavior and such. Normally the mom cat would tell her kids to move out after a few months.

I think people often underestimate the animal mind

It's not like they have discrete thoughts in words, but animals form friendships even across species in the wild. It's not abnormal for one animal to partner up with another - with an imbalance in size/strength the smaller one often will scout out prey and the larger one will give them scraps. Sometimes equals will share territory and even raise kittens/cubs together, taking turns babysitting.

With less abundant food, that's certainly got to be more rare now, but we've seen it happen, even captured it at length on video

Cats are going to have all sorts of ideas about our relationship, from a parent to a big predator friend to a giant clueless kitten. Or, maybe just another predator sharing space, or sometimes they totally discard their instincts and live by human rules

It's not so dissimilar from what we'd think if an alien took us as a pet and we didn't try to put a label on it - every relationship is unique

"I deserve this"

Not related to food, more to your second question..

"What do cats think of their humans?"

I had one cat that apparently thought something was wrong with my face because I wear glasses. Any time he got close enough to my face, he'd try in his own silly gentle way to 'help' me by gently biting the hinge on my glasses and pulling them off my face LOL!

Was the weirdest cool quirk I've ever seen out of any cat. I could tell he was deliberately doing it in his own effort to try to 'help' me. Never could totally break him of that habit either, I just had to make a point to not let him get that close to my face.

My cats are more likely to wonder why they aren't being fed RIGHT NOW.

They probably wonder why we don't more often.

I've seen my cat look at his empty food bowl after he ate everything in 2 seconds and then look at me like "hey, what the fuck dude? Give that back!"

If my cat can’t connect his relentless walking over my head while I’m sleeping, and then guiding me to his bowl, with me actually feeding him, there’s no hope for the little shit.

Cat: "Why has it taken you so long to feed me? I can see the bottom of the bowl, WTF is going on? Do you know how close to death I was?"

In the wild, cat moms would share mothering duties. So a kitten would have a mom and a bunch of aunts.
Wild cats generally only meow when they are kittens communicating with their mom. Kneading ('making biscuits') is also something they only do to their mom (it stimulate milk production).
Domesticated socialized cats basically... Mentally stay in the kittenhood phase. So they literally think you are their mom or aunt.

I think it depends on the cat and also on the moment. Sometimes it's "Thanks fam, I know you can be relied on to bring the cat food." Other times it's "Okay kid, you need to work on those clumsy hunting skills, try practicing with this dead mouse." And sometimes it's " Hey, fam, come you never share the good stuff, like that pizza?!" It's a bit like stepsiblings in a feral cat colony, they teach each other and sometimes fight but also defend and share and groom each other.

I don't think they question it. Just like if you feed a stray cat, they will often continue to come back

"Human gives food. I stay with human."

It was this evolutionary trait that allowed us to domesticate animals in the first place. I don't know if they have the complex psychological capacity to question or doubt it to that level. It's a trust bond, not a superiority one.

I am quite sure it is not like “HUMAN, WHERE IS MY FOOD?”

My cat brings me "offerings" back too, probably wondering why I don't eat his birds, frogs, mice