Abstract
Humans are emotionally affected by cute or infantile appearances, typical of baby animals and humans, which in turn often leads to careful and cautious behavior. The purpose of this pre-registered study was to examine whether looking at cute images of baby pets improves performance of computerized cognitive-motor tasks. Ninety-eight participants were recruited for this online study and were randomly assigned to two experimental groups. The participants in one group performed two cognitive-motor tasks (Simon task and alternate task-switching task) before and after viewing images of adult pets and the participants in the other group performed the tasks before and after viewing images of baby pets. The participants who viewed images of baby pets rated them as significantly cuter (Cohen’s d = 0.50) and more infantile (Cohen’s d = 1.56) compared with those who viewed images of adult pets. All participants improved their performance from the pre-test to the post-test, but no differences in correct responses and reaction times were seen between the groups. However, pet ownership appeared to serve as a moderating variable with pet owners performing the Simon task faster than non-pet owners. In addition, pet owners reacted faster in the alternate task-switching task after viewing cute and infantile images but not after viewing images of adult pets. This effect was not found among non-pet owners. In conclusion, this study did not find that viewing cute images improves cognitive-motor performance, yet this may be dependent on moderators like pet ownership.
Highlights
Cute or infantile physical appearances can elicit caregiving behaviors (Sherman et al, 2009), which are often performed in a careful manner, to avoid causing harm to the young
The participants who watched baby pets and the participants who watched adult pets spent 52.22 ± 24.83 sand 49.48 ± 23.86 s, respectively, rating the images based on their preferences
We hypothesized that participants who viewed images of puppies/kittens would have more correct responses and slower reaction times (RT) compared with participants who viewed images of adult dogs/cats
Summary
Cute or infantile physical appearances can elicit caregiving behaviors (Sherman et al, 2009), which are often performed in a careful manner, to avoid causing harm to the young. One question that arises from the emotional and behavioral responses to cute and infantile features, is whether the behavioral carefulness they elicit leads to improved performance of cognitive-motor tasks. This question was examined in four studies, where participants were asked to look at images of either dogs/cats or puppies/kittens and perform a fine motor task (using tweezers to remove small pieces from holes without touching the edges of the holes; Sherman et al, 2009; Nittono et al, 2012, Exp. 1; Yoshikawa et al, 2020), a more complex task (Basketball free throwing; Yoshikawa and Masaki, 2021), or other cognitive/visual search tasks (Nittono et al, 2012, Exp. 2,3)
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