Friday, February 6, 2015

Cute Kitten Photos Improve Concentration


Having trouble concentrating on a project at work?  Take a kitten break!  That's right - a new study conducted at Hiroshima University in Japan suggests that looking at photos of kittens and puppies can improve your concentration and attention to detail.

Cute Photos Can Improve Concentration

In this experiment, 48 university students played a game similar to "Operation," where they had to use tweezers to get little plastic body parts out of holes in a "patient's" body without touching the sides of the holes.  After one round of the game, half of the students were shown photos of adult dogs and cats while the other half were shown pictures of kittens and puppies.  

The researchers found that the students improved their performance on the second round of the game after they had viewed photos of kittens and puppies.  More specifically, these students seemed to perform the task in a slower and more deliberate manner.  However, those who had viewed photos of adult cats and dogs did not improve their performance in the second round of the game.

Cute Photos Can Improve Attention to Detail

The researchers conducted a second timed experiment where college students were asked to identify a series of stimuli shown on a screen.  Each stimulus was one large letter made up of many smaller letters.  For example, a bunch of small Ws would be in the form of a large T.  

Students were randomly shown photos of baby animals, adult animals, or neutral objects between each task.  Students who viewed the cute baby animals were faster at identifying the small letters that composed the large letters.  

This experiment suggests that looking at cute baby animals may help a person shift one's attention to focus on details more effectively.  The researchers hypothesize that this could be because babies require their caregivers to focus closely on their mental and physical well-being and to be alert to possible threats.   

The findings of this study are published in the journal PLoS ONE.  

The next time you find yourself struggling to focus on a task, try looking at several photos of cute baby kittens and puppies.  You might just find that it helps improve your ability to concentrate!  

A few of websites I enjoy containing cute kittens are:  




Did viewing cute baby animal photos help improve your concentration? Please come back and let us know if this technique worked for you!

Source

19 comments:

  1. You don't have to tell the mom that seeing cute kitten pics improves your mood. She'd spend the whole day looking at them if she could.

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  2. That is our mom's favorite pastime! When she gets cranky, we turn on the computer and show her kitten pictures.

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  3. So glad to hear there are studies to confirm what we've known all along!

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  4. My mum is always looking at kitten pics. I don't know why when she has me.

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  5. guys...thanx for de tip...de food serviss gurl will use thiz now at her place oh employ ...coz her iz all wayz sneekin round blog land frum werk !!

    heerz two a mustard eel & marlin kinda week oh end ♥

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  6. Studies finally confirm what we already knew for a long time ! Purrs

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  7. See mommy? There ya go. A reason to break away and watch US! (cool study - thanks for sharing!!!)

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  8. We don't need photos, all of us here are cute MOL!!!

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  9. How about looking at a REAL cute kitten... like me? I bet my human was even LESS productive before I came along!

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  10. Ha ha. What Summer said! TW better not look at any cats ‘cept me.

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  11. Last evening at her work in the nursing home, meowmy and the nurse she was working with looked up and there were baby pets being shown on the TV...(a huge screen so the residents can see it well)...and after the ooohs and ahhhs, the mood in the place was so much improved!

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  12. Well mommy sez dat's pawsum and might work ifin yous not lookin' at such all da time anyways. Fur her...she just gets dwousy and nods off. But most anyfin' can make hers nod off these days. MOL

    Luv ya'

    Dezi and Lexi

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  13. I've heard about this study, but I'm not sure I believe it - it seems to me that looking at cute kitten photos would lower productivity rather than increase it :-) But then again, what a great excuse to look at more cute kitten photos!

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  14. Nothing better than a good picture of a kitten or puppy. It has to make anyone smile.

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  15. Oh looking at kittens brings a smile and a good heart. xox

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  16. Yup, cute kittens always make us feel better. :)

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  17. If you are writing a paper, check out Written? Kitten! at http://writtenkitten.net/ . After so many words you type on their page, you get a new picture of a kitten (or whatever) from Flickr.

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