Study: Stupid Photos of Adorable Cats Boost Workplace Productivity

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Right now is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme and cruel agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability at the polls and in the press has a fighting chance. We have our work cut out for us, and we still need to raise upwards of 400,000 by June 30 to give it everything we can. Please help:

Scientists in Japan have found that LOLcats aren’t the useless workplace distraction we all thought they were. Via Sarah Kliff:

this Via the Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University

A team of researchers at Hiroshima University recently conducted a study where they showed university students pictures of baby animals before completing various tasks. What they found…was that those who saw the baby animal pictures did more productive work after seeing those photographs—even more than those who saw a picture of an adult animal or a pleasant food.

The study, titled “The Power of Kawaii: Viewing Cute Images Promotes a Careful Behavior and Narrows Attentional Focus,” was published September 26 in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE. Nearly 50 university students were charged with performing a simple task, under three conditions: After viewing pictures of adult cats and dogs, after viewing “pleasant” foods like steak and sushi, and after viewing images of kittens and puppies. Productivity and “correct trials” (charted above) were at their highest levels following the “awwwwww baby animal!” segment.

Researchers are floating a few theories on why this was the case, but one guess is that affection for babies inspires “tender treatments” and vigilance, which trickle down into other physical and mental activity. “If viewing cute things makes the viewer more attentive,” researchers wrote, “the performance of a non-motor perceptual task would also be improved.”

So if you’re at your work station, staring at this for a while might help you:

yes you can haz. /Flickr yes you can haz. elo vazquez/Flickr ; Meme Generator

This fella, too:

this /Flickr “You really should get back to work now, bro.” Steve Jurvetson/FlickrAnd:

this /Flickr “EXCEL 2010?!?!?!” alasam/FlickrIf your day hasn’t started oozing productivity and accuracy at this point, then something is wrong with you.