Authors: Yoshikawa, N., Nittono, H., & Masaki, H.

Title: Effects of viewing cute pictures on quiet eye duration and fine motor task performance (かわいい写真を見ることが注視時間と繊細な運動課題の成績に与える効果)

Journal(書誌情報）: Frontiers in Psychology (Section: Movement Science and Sports Psychology), 2020, 11: 1565.

doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01565

論文URL: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01565

Abstract: We investigated if viewing cute pictures could improve fine motor skills and prolong quiet eye (QE) duration. QE is a gaze phenomenon, and its duration (i.e., the period between fixation onset preceding a critical movement and fixation offset) is thought to represent attention control. As it has been reported that QE duration is longer for expert athletes than for novice athletes in various sports and becomes shorter even for experts who choke under pressure during games, resulting in performance deterioration, QE prolongation is important to prevent choking under pressure. Separately, several studies have confirmed that viewing cute pictures can induce focal attention, thus improving performance in fine motor tasks. We hypothesized that viewing cute pictures may modulate attention control and prolong QE duration.
We also tested if the beneficial effects of viewing cute pictures could be obtained in a high-pressure situation in which participant performance was evaluated by an experimenter. We used a fine-motor task requiring participants to use a pair of tweezers to remove 12 small pieces from holes in a game board. We randomly assigned participants to either the baby-animal pictures group or the adult-animal pictures group, based on pictures viewed prior to the task. Participants executed the task in a pre-test, post-test, and pressure test. In both the post-test and the pressure test, participants viewed seven photographs of either baby animals or adult animals before execution of the task. In accordance with previous research, task precision increased after viewing pictures of baby animals in both the post-test and pressure test. Furthermore, QE duration was also prolonged after viewing cute pictures in the post-test, but not in the pressure test Neither performance improvement nor QE prolongation was found after viewing pictures of adult animals. These results suggested that simply viewing cute pictures could prolong QE duration without pressure and might provide a beneficial effect on performance, even in a high-pressure situation.

著者Contact先の email: masaki [at] waseda.jp

日本語によるコメント: 本研究は，かわいい動物の写真を見ることで，繊細な動作を必要とする運動技能が向上し，動作直前の注視時間（quiet eye duration）が長くなることを示した。おとなの動物の写真にくらべて，幼い動物の写真を見た後には，細かな手作業の成績（成功率）が向上し，注視時間も長くなった。その後，他者から評価されるプレッシャーが与えられても，成功率の向上は維持された（注視時間の延長は認められなくなった）。プレッシャーのかかるスポーツ場面でも，かわいい写真を90秒間見るだけで有益な効果が得られる可能性が示唆された。

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