What you've been doing to procrastinate is actually helping you be more productive?

This PLOS ONE paper used the word "cute" 136 times.

What is this paper about?

"In this study, three experiments were conducted to examine the effects of viewing cute

images on subsequent task performance."

What was the hypothesis? More importantly, what is a cute image?

"The prediction was that images of baby animals would be rated as cuter than images of adult animals and that the participants’performance would improve more after viewing the cute images"

What was the study population?

"Forty-eight university students (24 men and 24 women, 18–22 years old, M= 18.6) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: baby animal condition or adult animal condition (n= 24, 12 men and 12 women)."

Does this operation task which utilized "Bilibili Dr. game" sound similar to a childhood game you once played?

"Using tweezers, the participants were asked to remove 14 small pieces from holes on the patient’s body depicted on the game board without touching the edges of the holes.

How were these images standardized? 

"The images of baby and adult animals were selected so that they differed in cuteness and infantility ratings but did not differ in pleasantness and excitement ratings."

What were the conclusions from the operation task experiment?

"...viewing cute images makes participants behave more deliberately and perform tasks with greater time and care."

What were the conclusions from the visual search task experiment?

  

"The results show that viewing cute images improves behavioral performance on a non-motor speeded task."

What are the future applications of this work?

"For future applications, cute objects may be used as a facile emotion elicitor. Cute features not only make objects more user friendly and approachable [3], but also induce careful behavioral tendencies in the users, which is beneficial in specific situations, such as driving and office work.

Unfortunately, the images used in the experiments were not included in the manuscript. Now we need to look for other ways to waste time on the interwebs...