The power of Kawaii makes you more focused

The more you look at the pictures of cute baby animals, the more your concentration improves, so says the latest study from Japan.

Research team from Hiroshima University in Japan found out, that people who are exposed to images of cute animals are better at playing complex games. This is a so called The Power of Kawaii phenomenon, Kawaii meaning cute in Japan, where cuteness is present in many aspects of their culture.

Before starting with the actual experiment, they defined the criteria of cuteness, what makes animal babies cute. They confirmed that, definition of cute is strongly linked to the human babies, meaning cute round faces with big sparkly eyes, which are also the main attributes of manga - Japanese comics - characters. When we look at the babies or children some sort of an instinctive reflex kicks in and apparently makes us automatically forget about ourselves. The researchers decided to carry on three different experiments.

The first experiment involved 48 people being split into two groups and playing a complex game that requires skills and concentration. After a while of playing the game, the first group was exposed to images of baby animals when the other group was looking at the pictures of adult animals and then they all continued to play the same game. The group that was exposed to baby pictures finished the game first and scored better.

In the second experiment, two groups made of the new 48 participants, had to count how many times a certain number appeared among a random string of numbers, as well as what letter was appearing within a shape next to the number string. After being exposed to cute and not so cute pictures, the cute animals group prevailed yet again, scoring significantly higher comparing to the not cute group.

The third experiment with 36 people involved whose reaction times were being measured, didn't result in any increase on performance what so ever. The mission of the game was recognizing a random letter that was showed on a screen for only a split of a second. The last experiment suggest that looking at the cute pictures can improve your concentration but cannot contribute to our mental abilities.