© University of Lincoln
There is no argument that we, adults, find some photos and videos of babies, puppies and kittens cute — and that is one reaosn they go viral on the Internet.
But researchers at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome and at the University of Lincoln in the UK wanted to know just how young this “cute response” start at. Do babies also react to cute images of other babies, puppies and kittens?
To find out, they devised experiments that used eye-trackers to track the gazes of British children between the ages of 3 and 6. They digitally manipulated 120 pictures of adult humans, babies, dogs, puppies, cats and kittens to give them a stereotypical “cuteness”: a round face, high forehead, big eyes and a small nose and mouth.
© University of Lincoln
The results of the experiments, published in the Frontiers of Psychology, showed that children rated images of adult dogs as cuter than both cats and humans. They also rated puppies and kittens as cuter than other babies. Next, the researchers want to know if the same results apply to newborns.
Read the research at: Frontiers of Psychology
via popsci