Joshua Paul Dale

Yeah, in Western culture, like European history, there has not been so much cuteness in arts and literature, you know, where we can track it. until possibly the Renaissance when cupids appeared in artworks. So there are many frescoes and paintings from the Renaissance with little winged cupids flying around that look like babies. In Japan, it's different.

Cuteness has been a presence in the arts in Japan for at least a thousand years in art and literature. And that difference is also something that I'm really interested in exploring. Why do you think it's so popular in Japanese culture for so long? One reason is that in Europe, the aesthetics that guided art were the beautiful and the sublime.

So painters just wanted to make things that were perfect and beautiful or that really impressed you and like a sublime object. In Japan, the aesthetics leaned more towards the everyday and painters wanted to do things that people would like rather than just focusing on perfection. In fact, Japanese art kind of prefers asymmetry to symmetry.

And this is that atmosphere that allowed cuteness to rise up in the arts in Japan so early, I think.

Yeah, it definitely can go in waves. There was an initial wave in the early 20th century that had to do with new technologies, like new printing technologies, so you could do color photographs and newspaper comic supplements and the era of mass production. And we're in the midst, I think, of another boom in cuteness that was caused by the internet and social media.

Because now we can share content so easily and it crosses geographical borders so easily. And so it feeds on itself. Like you said, we see a little cute content and it's popular. So more and more is produced and it just keeps going.

Studies, some studies have shown that women seem to be a bit more sensitive to cuteness, which is not really surprising because I think that cuteness is really part of girls and young women's culture. But on the other hand, the studies also show that men have sensitivity to cuteness as well. So it's really a mixed thing that appeals to all genders.

Yes, we are absolutely being manipulated by cuteness constantly. I can say that with confidence. Companies that make products that are cute are definitely trying to get us to buy them. Content providers are making cute content because it's popular and then we will subscribe to their channels.

So we do have to be a little bit careful of that, I think, and just kind of be aware of when we're attracted to something by its cuteness. You know, who benefits? We benefit, but perhaps we're allowing something else to benefit too, like a corporation.

Sure. For example, there have been some really interesting studies that put people into brain scanners and show them cute images and take a look at what happens to our brains when we are feeling the emotion of cuteness. And what they found is that cuteness attracts our attention very quickly, within one seventh of a second. And then it acts kind of as a releaser of social emotions.

So after we're attracted to a cute object, then it can influence our behavior. But it doesn't do that automatically. The attraction is automatic, but then it influences our behavior only if we really like cute things and depending on the situation. And in that case, it will release all these pro-social feelings like well-being and empathy and compassion and things like that.

Right now, I'm looking to the near future, to what's happening with AI, but also robotics. because I have a Google Scholar alert for cuteness. So a couple of times a week, these emails pop up in my inbox, and I get advanced news on what's being published in the academic fields on robotics and AI.

And I've been noticing a lot of papers that are concentrating on cuteness, like how can we make a robot act in a cute way? And they're very technical. The latest article I read was talking about head tilting, like how can a robot tilt its head So we look at it and go, oh, that's so cute. You know, what is the angle that needs to be done? What speed does the robot's head have to move?

So from this, I get the impression that we're going to be seeing a new generation of robots that are designed to look cute and to appeal to us through their cuteness. And we get a whole bunch of reasons for that. Some of them are a profit for the company, but also it's a way to help us to feel closer to that robot, to engage with it, and then it will help us more if that's the robot's intention.

Yes, actually, studies have shown that. Yeah, and I actually think anyone with children would recognize that once they reach a certain age, they are able to use their cuteness to try to manipulate their parents. So cuteness is both appreciated by very young children and also used by very young children.

Yeah, dogs have this muscle that allows them to raise their eyebrows, and it's interesting because wolves... who they descended from do not have this muscle. So it seems to have evolved because it is particularly effective in emotionally manipulating humans who have been taking care of dogs for a long time.

So I don't know if the dogs are deliberately, I mean, they didn't deliberately evolve this new muscle. It's just that the ones who had it survived better than the ones who didn't. And that's because of its effect on us. So really, you know, we're not really sure if animals feel cuteness themselves or if they are able to use cuteness to manipulate us.

But certainly animals will try to manipulate us just like young children will. I think anyone with a cat or a dog will know that sometimes the animal is trying to manipulate us to get food or our attention or care. And cuteness is a very effective way of doing that.

I think it's both. I think any animal, and that includes young humans, will use every weapon in their arsenal to try to get what they want. And cuteness is one of those tools. So, you know, I don't know how much they're actually aware that cuteness is the thing they're using. It's just the effective thing that they're using.

And they've realized that this is effective, and that's why they're using it.

So right now we have these AI chatbots that have learned through absorbing a tremendous amount of text. And we have these AI image generators that can generate images because they have absorbed a ton of images. but so far there haven't been any AIs that have trained on a huge corpus of videos.

But think of the tens of thousands or even millions of cute videos that have been uploaded to social media and the internet. If there was an AI that trained on all of those cute videos, and then the AI was able to operate a robotic body like a robotic dog, Sony already makes a robotic dog called the AIBO, and it's pretty cute.

If it has an AI engine in it that is trained with all of those videos, then it could perform cuteness in ways that would never make us bored, would always attract our attention and interest, our empathy and connection and always increase our own sense of well-being. And that's where I think the future might be headed.

Your questions are great. And I mean, I was prepared for that because I've listened to your show. But really, this was really a treat because the questions were just on point and excellent.

Yeah, we call that the baby schema. And basically anything that reminds us of a baby. is going to appear cute to us. So you gave the example of puppies. They have big eyes as they're maturing. They have a kind of wide face. They have short little arms and legs. And these are the things that trigger a cuteness response in us, because we evolved to feel that babies are cute. We evolve to it?

It's evolution? Or is it just cultural? Oh yeah, that's a really good question and it seems to be a mix of both. So, scientists think that we evolved to feel cute because babies need to be taken care of and even more than that, they need socialization. They need us to engage with them so that they can learn to be part of human society.

And that response was so robust because it's so needed in our evolution as a species that it kind of spills over into anything that looks like a baby, like puppies or kittens.

Yes. This is the question that companies are always trying to figure out when they design cute products. And the threshold is different for individuals. So we can never know for sure. Otherwise, you know, I can make a million dollars right now just by designing the perfect cute product.

So basically it has to have some of the characteristics of the baby schema, but more important I think is the relationship that we can feel with the cute object. So if we can feel some kind of connection and there's a few cute characteristics, then we're going to be overwhelmed by that feeling of cuteness.

Well, studies have shown some really interesting results about that. Cuteness can basically induce positive emotional states because it gets our brain ready for behaviors like caretaking and also socialization. So when we see something cute, first of all, it makes us feel good. It increases our sense of well-being.

It also triggers activity in the muscles used for smiling, even if we're not aware of it. Scientists have put sensors on people's faces and the muscles are activated for smiling when we see something cute. And also, seeing something cute promotes social relationships, like it increases our empathy, and it even focuses our attention more.

Yeah, cute can be a synonym for very similar words like pretty or adorable, which is very close to cute. And there's also an element of the word cute in English that is not in the word in other languages. Cute in English can imply something that's a little bit clever or cunning. Like you can say, oh, don't be cute to someone, for example, and you're not talking about adorability there.

You're saying don't be so clever. In other languages, like in Japanese, the word for cute is kawaii, and it does not have that kind of meaning. You cannot say don't be kawaii in the way that you can say don't be cute in English. That's what I find so interesting about this phenomenon.

I think it depends on our own situation. So some people are more attracted to cute things than others. And there's interesting research going on right now about AI assistants, which are coming fast. And so the scientists are wondering, will people like an assistant that sounds cute or one that sounds more professional? And it really depends on the situation.

If you're asking for help with a technical issue, you want professionality. But there are other cases where if a voice, artificial voice, sounds kind of cute, that you might forgive its mistakes a little bit more easily, for example. And companies are very aware that that can be a big advantage to them.

Cuteness attracts our attention very quickly, within one seventh of a second. Then it acts as a releaser of social emotions like well-being and empathy and compassion and things like that.

Yeah, there's a phenomenon they call auditory cuteness that's also being investigated. And so far, the research has really concentrated on voices that are sort of a little bit more higher-pitched, There are actually robots available that create sounds, they don't talk, through a cavity in their bodies that is the same size as a baby's voice box.

So in general, if a voice sounds like a little bit higher pitch and also a little bit maybe a little bit funny or laughing a little bit, then we're more likely to imagine that a relationship with that voice and go along with it.

Well, we will feel that animals are cute if they have the baby schema characteristics and also if they're in their, what we call the socialization period. Young animals, including predators like bears or wolves, in their first few weeks of life, they are very curious and they explore everything and they have a lot of energy.

Those are the characteristics that human children have too, and these will help trigger our cuteness response. But of course with wild animals, once the socialization window closes, then they become more cautious and can become aggressive as well.

Well, that's part of it. I mean, my typical answer to the question of why do I study Qt is that it's a multi-billion dollar industry operating around the world and very few people are studying it. But more than that, I mean, you're right to guess that I have more of an interest. And my interest really lies in just how...

deep it goes, and how many ways you can study it from so many different positions. You can study the science of cuteness, the psychology of cuteness, from marketing, sure, but also from a cultural standpoint. What do we find cute and why, and how is this different across individuals and cultures? It just seems like I'll never get to the bottom of it, and that's what attracts me.