Seeing Cute Animal Image Improves Concentration and Output

Viewing cute baby images of animals have a positive impact on your performance.

According to the Japanese researchers from Hiroshima Unversity, looking at the 'Kawaii' Japanese for cute, images before indulging into any task helps in increasing the concentration level.

According to the study, Japan's culture accepts and appreciates childishness at the social level. Different anime and character goods are described as kawaii. They consider cute objects to be characterized by baby schema.

The researchers conducted three different experiments where they noticed that images of puppies and kittens were perfect performance boosters when compared to adult animals and images of pleasant food.

The detail of this study was published online in the online edition of the PLoS One.

The researchers divided nearly 132 University students into three different groups each of which were assigned a task.

In the first experiment nearly 48 students were asked to complete a game similar to "Operation" where with the help of tweezers picked pieces without triggering the buzzer. At the end of the game half viewed pictures of cute baby animal and half viewed pictures of adult animals.

In round two the group focused at pictures of the baby animals improved their score while the ones that viewed adult pictures showed no improvement.

In the second experiment participants were asked to look at groups of numbers and answer how many times a certain digit appeared, within three minutes. They were divided into three groups one looking at baby animals, another looking at adult animals and a third group looking at pictures of food. The one viewing cute animals improved their performance.  from when they did not look at any images before the test. The other two groups did not significantly improve.

According to nzherald, "A third test backed up the findings of the first two tests, with those who viewed cute animals performing better at a global-local letter task."

"Kawaii things not only make us happier, but also affect our behaviour," the conclusion was quoted in the nzherald.

"This finding suggests that viewing cute images makes participants behave more deliberately and perform tasks with greater time and care," the researchers were quoted in WSJ.

"Kawaii things not only make us happier, but also affect our behavior," wrote the researchers, led by cognitive psychologist Hiroshi Nittono. "This study shows that viewing cute things improves subsequent performance in tasks that require behavioral carefulness, possibly by narrowing the breadth of attentional focus." 

So if you want to do your job with full concentration then this method will help you.