More recently, though, broader access to different types of brain scans has given scientists a much better view. In a study published in in the journal PNAS , for example, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging fMRI to monitor brain activity when adults viewed images of infant faces.
Some of the images had been digitally manipulated to enhance or reduce their kindchenschema. Study participants rated the infant faces with enhanced kindchenschema as cuter. Those images also set off more activity in parts of the brain involved in reward processing, such as the precuneus, associated with attention, and the nucleus accumbens, which is linked to the anticipation of a reward.
The findings were among the first to show that kindchenschema trips our reward motivation wires, leading us to want to pay attention to, and care for, an infant, even if not our own. Another thing we know: Our cuteness response is lightning-fast.
Identify what it is, where it is and then form a judgment. If I am looking at a flower, for example, my brain uses that two-step process. Over the last decade, Kringelbach and colleagues have continued to use MEG to log brain activity in response to the cute and not-so-cute. This quick response did not occur, however, when study participants viewed adult faces or listened to adult voices. Mammals need mommies.
For many mammal species, fathers also play a role in parental caregiving. But what about non -mammals? University of Michigan evolutionary psychologist Daniel Kruger decided to investigate whether kindchenschema might also be present in birds and reptiles that provide parental care.
The other four were superprecocial and independent from birth, no mom or dad needed. Participants answered a series of questions about the animals, including whether they recognized the species, wanted to hold or pet the animal and, if they found it abandoned, would consider helping it. The results, published in a series of studies between and , were intriguing.
Although participants knew little to nothing about most of the species pictured, they consistently rated the animals that required parental care as cuter and more likely to receive their attention and aid than the superprecocial animals.
The research is the first to establish that humans respond to kindchenschema in nonmammals and, crucially, that the level of the response is linked to the amount of parental care the young animals actually need. The studies suggest that kindchenschema and the caregiving response it triggers may have evolved very early in the evolutionary past we share with animals as disparate as birds and reptiles.
Many studies, particularly in the 20th century, have identified a stronger cuteness response from women. When participants are asked to rate how cute babies are, men typically rate the infants lower than women do. However, brain scans tell a different story. This ultrafast gender-neutral response to cuteness activates more than our reward centers. In a study, researchers recorded the brain activity of participants exposed to both positive and negative infant vocalizations: recordings of giggly, happy babble and a distress cry.
The volunteers also listened to recordings of distress cries from adult humans, dogs and cats. Other research has shown that both visual and auditory aspects of kindchenschema prime parents and nonparents alike to be on their A-game.
A study in PLOS One found that participants performed both motor dexterity and visual search tasks more accurately after viewing cute images versus non-cute images.
Afterward, the volunteers played a game similar to the carnival classic whack-a-mole. The greatest power of cuteness may occur after the quick response. Increasingly, researchers see the cuteness response as less about parental nurturing and more about intense social behavior. For more than a minute. However, the same cuteness that helps you get through a difficult day may prevent you from moving on to better things. It helps people. I would stay in a bad job longer if there was a dog in the office!
These are difficult decisions that humans have made for thousands of years. By Meghan Overdeep August 29, Save FB Tweet More. Age Babies are Cutest. All rights reserved.
Close Sign in. Six of the best A recent study published in Evolution and Human Behavior tells us that older babies are the cutest kids on the block, and newborns are made a little more … funny-looking, basically to ensure the survival of the human race. Confusing, no? We thought so too, but the study authors say there are clear signs babies are most appealing at six months of age — and clear reasons it might be this way. MORE Newborn. Newborn What is a postpartum doula?
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