WEBVTT - The Science of Cute 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.960 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.040 Works dot com. Hey are welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:16.439 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:20.120 Kai E Douglas. Oh yeah, that's your your new nickname now, 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:24.439 I just want to try it out. Kawai kai. Yeah, 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:26.520 I don't know. I don't think that people usually call 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:30.080 me cute that, which is what kawaii essentially means in Japanese. 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.320 M Yeah, what is it? What is cute? What does 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.440 it mean to be cute as a person is a thing? Like? 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:38.920 What does that label mean within our culture? Well, I 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.040 think the United States it's more of an outward appearance, 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:45.640 whereas in Japanese culture it is sort of this whole 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:51.680 industrial complex of absolute cuteness. Yes, yes, definitely in Japan, 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:55.760 kauai is big business and has been for for decades now. Um, 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:58.080 but certainly cute holds a lot of power here in 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:00.720 the States as well throughout most of the rest of 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:04.000 the world. I mean, even just looking around in this room, 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:07.200 we can see some little bits of cute peking their way, 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:09.480 and there's a there's a wooden monkey over there on 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:14.240 Noel's desk. There's Pablo Picasso in his underwear. Picture of 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.160 Pablo Picasso is underway. Yes, I don't know how cute 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:20.440 that is, but but the monkey's cute to eliminate extent, 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:22.720 the dinosaur is cute. And if you go around our death, 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.800 like any workplace, you're gonna find various totems of cute, 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:30.759 various little, uh little icons of cuteness that just some 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:34.440 degree empower the individual who has it. That's right. So 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.240 we are going to explore this concept of kauai e 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.920 and we're gonna do it through a couple of different 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:43.720 vectors here, one of which is, of course, uh, one 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:46.640 of the big exports of the Internet, and I'm not 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:51.160 talking about porn, but the other thing cats cats. Yes, yes, 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.000 So it should come as no surprise anyone that, of 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:56.840 course the Internet is full of cat videos, cat photos, 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:00.040 cat memes, images, gifts, you name it. I mean, in 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.600 any given day, you're probably bombarded with at least two 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:05.800 or three of these things, right, and if you act 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.760 actively seeking them out, if you're actively consuming them, then 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:10.760 there's no end in sight. You could get on a 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:12.600 kick one day and just keep going that you starve 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:16.399 to death. You could you would just fall down that 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:20.240 cat wormhole and and you're right, you can fill your 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:23.680 head with with all these sorts of images. And actually, 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:28.840 there is an artificial neural network that Google's ex Laboratory 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:33.320 and Stanford University have been working on. And again, this 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:37.000 is a large scale neural network. It's distributed across sixteen 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.359 thousand process of course, and researchers trained models with more 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:43.040 than one billion connections. And they found that this network, 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:45.520 when it sort of ran off on its own, it 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:49.080 learned how to identify a cat after a week of 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:52.800 watching YouTube videos. That is how prevalent this subject is 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.760 on the internet. Yeah, they fit at random thumbnails of images, 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.880 each one extracted from ten million YouTube big eos. And 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:04.600 it ends up having to basically invent the concept of 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:07.920 the cat in processing all of this data, figuring out right, 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:09.480 what's at the heart of this? What is this about? 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:11.960 What is what? What? What is all this data telling me? 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:14.160 It is telling me this is a cat, this is 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:16.600 the form of the cat, and uh and and then 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.960 and then everything else stems from that. And so you 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:24.559 have someone like philosopher Dan Dennett, who who's talking about 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:28.000 these sort of super normal stimuli, and he's talking about 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:32.640 super normal stimuli like chocolate cake. He's saying that there 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:35.240 are certain things in our environment that we see that 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:39.920 really get us ramped up, and that cats, babies, these 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:44.000 all maybe the sort of super stimuli that works UM 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:47.840 on this sort of evolution and instinctual preference. So if 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.200 you look at a chocolate cake, for instance, Um, that 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:54.160 is a high energy food, right, You like the chocolate 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:56.880 cake not because it's chocolate cake, but because you know 0:03:57.560 --> 0:03:59.880 that it's going to be a huge shot of glucose, 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.119 and that you know, from an evolutionary perspective, that would 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.160 be helpful for us to have stores with that, right, Yes, 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.320 because in the ancient past, of course, a big chocolate 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:09.760 cake was hard to come by, or certainly that much sugar, 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:11.440 that much energy in one place was hard to come by. 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.040 You had to jump on it. And uh, it's the 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:16.919 chocolate cake example is great too because if anyone remembers 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:20.480 back to our episodes on decision fatigue UM and in 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.200 neural load and how that how we carry that through 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.640 the day. The experiments that studied it, Uh, most of 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.479 the time they seem to incorporate chocolate cake in one 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.599 form another, using that as the temptation as to your 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.839 to your willpower to your your problem solving ability. Let's 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:38.520 see what happens when we throw a chocolate cake in 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:41.560 your direction. Not literally, uh though that would be awesome 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:43.719 as well, but but we'll put it in your vicinity 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.960 and see how it affects your brain power and low behold, 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:51.520 it just really tinkered with people's ability to think rationally. Yeah, 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:54.000 because suddenly I have to at least resist it. And 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:55.400 in a way, it's like I have to fight that 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:57.599 chocolate cake. It's like it's like you're going through a 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:00.160 dungeon and you're trying to get to the treasure. Then 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.280 you have to fight a troll along the way. It's 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:04.920 the same thing, except the battles taking place inside your 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:09.480 mind as you try to resist the irresistible glucose temptation 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:12.719 of the cake. So Dannatt would say that a super 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:16.400 normal stimuli for cuteness, of course, would be babies. He says, 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:18.560 it's important that we love babies that will not be 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.120 put off by saying messy diapers. He says, so babies 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:24.800 have to attract our affection in our nurturing, and they do. 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:26.840 And so that's when you begin to really look at 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:29.760 not just babies, but cats and puppies and really anything 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:34.520 that embodies this idea of innocence and vulnerability and and 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:38.159 this sort of parental instinct that we'll talk a little 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:41.479 bit more about. But this is this idea that cats 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.680 perhaps have arrested our attention because of this instinct because 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.200 they look like babies essentially, and then play it up 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:50.920 to as we've discussed before, crying in a way that 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:55.000 mimics the cries of a baby, et cetera. Yes, now 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:57.160 I wanted to mention this because we are going to 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:01.200 go dive into this kawaii or going to dive more 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:04.520 into cats and the culture of cats on the internet. 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:08.000 But there's something called cute aggression, and I think, I 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:10.720 don't know, part of me is sort of, you know, 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:14.000 one eyebrow raised about this study and it just sounds 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:17.719 like a tumbler page. It's actually a study actually theory. Yeah. 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.360 So Rebecca Dyer, she's a grad student psychology at Yale University, 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:24.320 took one nine people and she had them look at 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:28.240 pictures of animals. The categories were cute, funny, and neutral 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:33.080 photos actually specifically of puppies, and then the participants rated 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:36.200 how they felt about the pictures agreeing or disagreeing with 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:40.920 statements like I just can't handle it, meaning the cuteness um, 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:43.080 or whether whether or not it made them want to 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:46.440 squeeze something, or if they were seized with the impulse 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:50.960 to vocalize after seeing one of these pictures like so cute. 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.080 So researchers found that the cute or the animal, the 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:58.440 more aggressive the response. Okay, okay, So now they follow 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:02.440 up with a non verbal study and participants. Participants are 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:05.120 given bubble wrap and they're told to just go to 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:08.440 town with it, okay, and they watch a slide show 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:12.440 of cute and then funny and then neutral pictures of animals, 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.320 and then lo and behold. Which you find is that 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:19.880 more bubbles were popped during the cute slide shows as 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.600 opposed to the funny pictures of animals or the neutral 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.040 pictures of animals. Now, the data is not that crazy. 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.680 I mean, we're talking about hundred and twenty pops for 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:32.920 the cuteness um, eight pops for the funny, and only 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.360 one hundred or excuse me, and one hundred for the neutral. 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:39.080 So you know, the data Here's not like putting this 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:42.080 this strong information out there to say like people are 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.720 just bursting with cute aggression. And you know, but they 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:48.640 are saying, Rebecca Dye or at least is saying it 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:51.680 could be the sort of pent up frustration at not 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:54.440 being able to reach through those photos and cuddle that 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:57.240 baby or that puppy because you just want to touch it, 0:07:57.280 --> 0:07:59.320 you don't want to bite it. Well, and that's what 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.200 we've talked about the before. How how sometimes there are 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:04.880 these there are people who will say that baby is 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:07.400 so cute, I just want to eat it. Yeah, and 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:10.120 on some level, you you actually do. On some level, 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:14.520 you're being fooled into into equating the baby's cuteness and 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:16.240 the face of the baby, the shape of the baby, 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.760 the baby nous of the creature. Equating it with something 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.400 you would actually gorge on is found in the barest, 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:26.840 which is kind of awful. Yeah. Alright, well, on that note, 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:29.360 maybe we should take a break here and when we 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:39.760 get back we'll get more into this idea of quite 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:43.480 all right, we're back. You know, another thing about that study, 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:46.480 I had never heard of a study using the bubble 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:50.360 wrap uh method before. I really hope that become standardized 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:52.960 to the point where we see movies about serial killers 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:55.600 where like a potential serial killer is being forced to 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.240 look at, you know, accident photos gets a rise out 0:08:58.240 --> 0:08:59.880 of him. And so it's like, you know, and Anthony 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.480 Hopkins Hannibal like characters sitting there with the grim face, 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.240 watching grim footage and then popping bubble rap, and it 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.680 just becomes really so much a part of how we 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:11.560 determine unconscious thoughts that even the CIA begins to use it, right, 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.320 just just orders with like vast reams of the stuff. Yeah, 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:18.280 and then people are probably more willing participants because who 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.040 doesn't love to pop bubble wrap? Everyone? Everyone loves it, 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:25.559 even dogs love it. Sure it's not as fine, all right. Kawaii. 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:28.000 Um we we touched on it at the beginning of 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:30.760 the episode, but I kind of see it. This is 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.400 very reductionist because it really we could do an entire 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.719 podcast on Japanese culture in kawaii, but um, it's sort 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:41.040 of this Hello Kitty ization is certainly the the easiest 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:45.920 example and certainly the most widespread example of of Japanese 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:50.400 culture Kawaii cute culture because it's it's everywhere now, and 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:52.920 it's it's it's the big eyes, it's the cute creature 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:55.960 and it and it also has this sort of Japanese 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:59.199 school girl quality to it. And then that's, according to 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.680 some cultural historians, that's kind of the the origin of 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:07.400 the Kauaii movement in Japan anyway, that it you go 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:09.920 back to the nineteen seventies, you find this kitten writing, 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:14.000 this cute handwriting they call it among schools, right because 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:16.400 it wasn't really all that readaful. I mean, it got, 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:18.960 you know, to the point where it's just big round 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.200 characters and faces and stars and uh and the and 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:24.480 the teacher who was saying, no, this is not actual writing. 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:26.800 But then it blows up. It starts showing up in 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:28.880 comic I mean not in common boost been magazines, but 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:33.520 then ultimately in Magna and other forms, and eventually becomes 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.000 this huge industry with stuff like Hello Kitty, which is 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.040 just all over the world and and and attached to 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:42.000 so many different products. Yeah, and if you look really 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.959 deeply into kauai, you will begin to see that it's 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.640 not just the products the clothing, um even food items, 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:50.800 or even some of the logos that are on airplanes 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:56.480 in some um government entities, but it's also behavior and 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:00.920 mannerism among both genders. And it really is this preoccupation 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:06.319 with um not just cuteness, but youth and innocence. So 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:08.920 it's this, uh, sort of an arrested development. I look 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.120 at it that way, not the TV show, but in 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:15.600 terms of, you know, trying to stave off aging and 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:19.920 all of the sort of responsibility and perhaps the less 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:23.960 fun aspects of life as you get older. Yeah, and 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.080 then probably encapsulates a lot of nostalgia as well, because 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.960 you grow older, you end up still catching attaching these 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:34.040 cute icons in this qualification of just about every aspect 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.559 of life, and therefore you keep it kind of tethered 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.400 to youth and tethered to youth culture. You know what's 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:42.720 interesting about that too, is that if you seize onto 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:44.880 this idea of kai and you see them to this 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:49.240 idea of embodying these aspects of cuteness and big eidness 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:53.280 and innocence, then perhaps in a way you're thinking to 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.720 yourself on a subconscious level, at least you know, I 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:59.520 will be more protected out there in society, which then 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:02.319 brings up this whole idea of you know, how do 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:06.160 we really how much of this parental response is responsible 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:09.480 for our behavior in the way that we interact with 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:13.240 things that are cute. Now, another bit of Japanese cuteness 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:16.600 that instantly comes to mind is the the lucky cat. 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:19.760 If you find all you find it all over Asia, 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.120 and you you find it increasingly everywhere in the United 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.320 States as well. Of course, the little generally like a 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:29.520 gold plastic cat, big eyes and it's it's waving its 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:33.480 little paw in the air. Uh. These are officially called 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:37.320 maneki nicko or beckoning cats. And I was looking up 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.040 some stuff back because I'm well, how does that tie 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:43.040 into cute culture? Because as I suspected, that's older in 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:45.680 its roots than the Hello Kitty. It dates back to 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:48.640 the the Edo period, which was between a sixteen o 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:51.600 three and eighteen sixties seven. Uh, And you know, it's 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:54.160 just sort of picked up steam over time. So even 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.400 though we look at the kitten writing in the seventies 0:12:57.720 --> 0:12:59.959 and and the rise of Hello Kitty is sort of 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:04.800 the real um pivotal aspects of Hawaii, I feel like 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:07.840 that the roots were already there, if if nowhere else 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:11.000 in the presence of cats. I think you're right now. 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.520 I have this idea of you know, the thousands of 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:15.680 years from now, well people look back at you know, 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:18.080 sort of a saying, oh, the Ming dynasty thing, you know, 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.720 the rise of the Hello Kiddy dynasty, Because that really 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:24.839 is how pervasive kauai is. And I think in the 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:29.360 United States here were we have flavors of it um 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:31.360 and you know, just look around, as you say, like, 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:33.040 you know, we look around our office and we can 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:36.720 see that it's it's um interwoven into the way that 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:39.840 we decorate or we perceive certain aspects we have our life. 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.160 At least two adult members of the staff who are 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:48.319 Disney fanatics, and there's a lot of kauai tied up there. 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:50.439 And again, just about every other death has some sort 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:52.600 of token, some sort of little bit of kauai. I 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:54.319 feel like if you look closely enough, if you root 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.280 through their stuff, I mean really get in there and 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.480 in their privacy, you'll find some bit of cute that 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:02.400 is keeping them going. And that sounds kind of specific. 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:05.760 What have you found? Oh, all sorts of stuff. I'll 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:08.319 show you later. I have a box. Okay, So you're 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.280 probably wondering to yourself, are there any studies that can 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.080 support this cuteness, that can kind of give us a 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:17.000 better idea of why we react to this stuff the 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.560 way we do. Of course there is because you know 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:22.400 what we're talking about cute. We're talking about the way 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:25.120 that of kitten's face is cute to us because it 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:28.800 is reminiscent of the baby's face. And then what happens 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:30.880 when we look at the baby, right, that's the question. Well, 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:32.240 there have been studies that have looked at that. We 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:34.960 have the technology, of course to look inside the brain 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:37.560 to see how what kind of neural activity is going 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.800 on when we do different things. And there was there's 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:43.320 one particular study that we're looking at here, uh and 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:45.880 this was this involved the use of a meg scanner 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.080 and they were looking at parental responses to both puppy 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:55.200 faces and baby faces and then unfamiliar adult faces. Right, yes, Okay. 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.840 The really startling thing about this study is that when 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:03.040 participants looking at all of these pictures within one seventh 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.680 of a second, just a split second, literally, the medial 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:10.080 orbital frontal cortex, which is involved in emotional responses, lit 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:12.600 up like a pinball machine when people look at infant 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:16.160 and puppy faces, but was pretty, you know, relatively silent 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:20.720 when adult faces showed up. So kringele Bach Morton Kringelbach, 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:25.320 who ran the study calls this the parental instinct, and 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:28.520 he says these responses are almost certainly too fast to 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.840 be consciously controlled and are therefore perhaps instinctive. That's his 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:34.680 idea about it. Yeah, because we're talking about middleseconds here. 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.760 We're talking about just an instant of seeing that baby face, 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:41.840 that puppy face, and you are suddenly pacified. You suddenly 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:46.000 you're maybe put out of an aggressive spirit or irritated spirit, 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.320 and you have to somehow help the poor larval human 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:51.560 or dog. Yeah. And the thing is that it even 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:55.680 goes beyond visual processing, because people who are blowing from 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.600 birth have the same areas activated in their brains when 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.040 they hear the name of animals. So the concept of 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:04.720 animals or how we've painted them and language just goes 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:09.400 far beyond just pictures. Here. The idea is really standing 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:13.360 in for um, the experience. So that study makes a 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:15.160 lot of sense. I mean again, it just ties in 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.600 directly to the way we look at look at an infant, 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.120 at a kitten, at a puppy and uh and and 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.400 how we instantly want to care for it on some level. 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:24.760 And I feel like we all buy into that really easily. 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:29.080 But here's another idea that two twelve Japanese study looked at, 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:32.200 and this one was published in the Plos One. They 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:34.320 were asking, well, if I look at something cute, how 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:39.040 does it affect my attentiveness? Which which that question makes 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:41.040 me think of all these things that we were We 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:44.440 surround ourselves with these icons of cute, Like the cute 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:46.200 little lamp that I have on my desk. It's like 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:48.760 a little face um that I got an I kea 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.760 years ago. What happens when I look at that? Is 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.840 it making me more relax? Is it making me more atentive? 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:56.880 Is it a just a distraction? Is all this cutest 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:00.240 a distraction? Well, in this study they looked into this. 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:04.879 They took participants and they viewed animal images and then 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:07.560 they tested them to see how they performed on various tasks, 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:11.120 and they found that participants who viewed infant animal images, 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:14.119 ones that were rated particularly cute, they were able to 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:17.200 perform pass better than those who viewed images of boring 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:22.000 adult animals. So it's interesting, right, because you're like, well, 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:24.800 is it really possible that if I look at a 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:27.200 cute object or a cute picture that I'll be able 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:32.320 to better? You know, concentrate on the task before me. 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.440 But I would indeed hang in there as the cute 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.840 cat hanging from the branch. I would want to to 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:40.760 to convey to you. I like, how you get that? 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.080 That was nice stuff? Um. But the thing is is 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:47.840 that each group of participants consisted of less than fifty 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:50.159 university students, and I think they did three different versions 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.919 of these attention tests. And then all of these fifty 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:57.679 university students were between the ages of eighteen and twenty two. 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.240 And so this is also taking play in Japanese culture, 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:05.879 where you know that the kawaii effect is much more pronounced, 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.879 which leads some people to say, perhaps there's not really 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:15.320 that much evidence here that cuteness could bolster your attentiveness. Yeah, 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:17.280 because if this held true, you would just want to 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:21.480 cuteify everything. You'd want a little cute faces and animals 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.840 just crawling all over just everything in your work life, 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.640 everything at home, just until you're just there's just an 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.240 overdose of cute all the time, just to keep you attentive. 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:34.200 And I have to say that might be distracting at 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:38.919 that point. Yeah, alright, so what about cuteness and a robot? 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:42.080 And I'm not talking about you, Arnie. Sorry, but I'm 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.840 talking about Kismut the robot. And we've actually met Kismut 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.560 before here on, at least in the episodes that we've described. 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.919 Kismutt is robot that has been used at M I 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:55.919 T and it is used to figure out sort of 0:18:55.920 --> 0:19:01.120 the psychological ramifications of interactions between humans and robots, specifically children. 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:06.359 It kind of looks like a skinless robot Magua or Furby. Yeah, yeah, 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:10.159 Ferby definitely. It's got the furry ears, it's got huge eyes, 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:14.240 and it can make a lot of distinctive um faces 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.280 that that interact with the person. Yeah, and it works. Uh. 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:20.680 I think it works really well because it's not it's 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.200 not an attempted to human face, so you don't actually 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:27.000 get into that possibility of uncanny Valley. It's instead this 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:30.600 this non human but but it that it has human 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:33.800 qualities to it, and then it is successfully making all 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.520 these various faces and conveying emotion. At the bottom of this, 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:40.760 there's just cuteness. That's what reigns supreme about this robot 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.320 um other than its ability to interact with humans. So 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:47.000 what do you do? You take this robot and you 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:50.800 insert it into a study, which is headed up by 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:54.399 Terry Burnham at Harvard University along with Brian Hair. They 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:58.480 pitted nine volunteers against each other anonymously in games where 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:00.879 they had to donate money or withhold. It's sort of 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:03.800 the classic scenario we've seen over and over again. They 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:06.200 can donate it into a communal pot and that would 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.040 yield the most money, but only if other people donated 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.360 to So the researchers split the group into two. Half 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.360 made their choices undisturbed at computer screens, while the other 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:20.639 half were faced with the photo of this absolute adorable kisman. Now, 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:25.280 the players who gazed at Kismut gave thirty more to 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:27.879 the pot than others, and Vernam and Hare believed that 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:31.400 at some subconscious level they were aware of being watched, 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.280 or they sort of took that as being watched just 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:38.280 looking at this photo. Um, but it may have something 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:41.720 also to do with our brain kind of carrying out 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:46.040 this decision making with this cute, this representation of cuteness 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:48.399 in front of us. Yeah, because how hard and selfish 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:50.640 can you be in the presence of like a really 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.399 cute kitten or an adorable baby. Not so much in 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.000 even in the processing of it of thinking thinking, oh, 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:57.880 this is cute, and you know that melts my heart 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:00.639 a little bit. But in that those micro sect that 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:04.400 we talked about, of seeing this cute image and that, 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:07.359 you know, against every fiber in your your your body, 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.080 any defense you may have you may have up against 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:12.400 that cuteness and against the idea of giving your money 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.959 away or or or or letting your your temper go 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:18.159 down a bit, it kind of creeps in past all 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:21.840 those defenses and deactivates you. Well, what I love too, 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:26.399 is this idea that you could manipulate altruistic behavior with 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:29.680 a pair of fake eyeballs, right just staring at you, 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:34.800 adorable fake eyeballs. All right, Well, we're gonna take one 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:37.040 more break, and when we come back, we're gonna talk 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:39.119 a little bit more about Kauai and a little bit 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:51.880 more about cats. All right, we're back. Okay. So there 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:55.840 is a wonderful article from Wired magazine called In Search 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:59.280 of the Living, purring, singing Heart of the Online Cat 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:04.320