Need a productivity boost? Try a kitten

A new study has found that viewing pictures of baby animals increases concentration and focus.

The Japanese have long known that cute things produce happy feelings — but apparently they do a lot more. Researchers at the Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University, have found that looking at adorable baby animals gives workers a spike in productivity, too.

The study, "The Power of Kawaii", published last week in scientific journal PLOS One, was split into three groups. In the first, 48 university students were asked to play a game similar to Operation. In between sessions, the students were shown a card with either a picture of an adult or a baby animal. Those who viewed the baby animals performed 44 per cent better at the game, although they took a little longer to do so.

The second group, consisting of 48 students once again, was asked to perform a visual test in which they had to find a particular numeral in a grid without the aid of pointing. In between sessions, one third of the group viewed baby animals, another third viewed adult animals and the last third viewed pictures of pleasant food. The baby animal group performed better by around 16 per cent, while the food group experienced no significant change in performance.

In the third section of the experiment, 36 participants were tested on reaction time, tasked with indicating whether a display showed the letter H or the letter T. Viewing baby animals was found to reduce the global precedence effect.

According to the study:

The results replicated and extended the result of Sherman et al that viewing cute images has a positive effect on behavioural performance in tasks that require carefulness. The effect occurred not only in the motor domain, but also in the perceptual domain.

If you want to test this study for yourself, click through our gallery of adorable baby animal photos below — and bookmark Zooborns for a regular fix.