Puppies Kittens Little kids. Who knew that with one glance at these cute creatures our mental abilities could increase? A new study by Japanese scientists claims that if we want to focus, it’s better to look at the photos of these cuties than just communicate with them personally.
That is the power of kawaii. The Japanese word "kawaii" means "cute", "adorable." Using three separate experiments, a group of scientists from the University of Hiroshima found that people show higher levels of attention after looking at photos of puppies or kittens.
About 132 students were divided into three groups that performed different tasks. The first version of the task - the participants had to carefully, without touching the edges, remove small objects from the hole. To determine whether the “kawaii power” extends to tasks that are not related to attention, the second group was asked to work with numbers: find a given number from a random sequence of numbers within a certain period of time.
Each group performed its task twice: before and after looking at pictures of animals. But one group admired the kittens and puppies, the other - adult animals.
In the experiment with numbers, some participants (the third group) were shown pictures depicting dishes: beef steak, pasta and sushi in order to check whether "tasty" images would lead to similar results. The first two groups showed the most convincing results.
Of these, those participants who were shown photographs of puppies and kittens completed their task 44% better than those who looked at adult cats and dogs.
"This discovery suggests that viewing images of cute creatures makes participants behave more deliberately and perform tasks with great attention," the researchers say.
