I can haz more productivity?

Fellow office workers, I have good news for you. If you occasionally indulge in a bit of lolcats when you take a break, you may actually be helping your employer by being more productive when you get back to work.

And yes, feel free to quote me on that.

Researchers at Hiroshima University in Japan have found that viewing cute images of kittens and puppies improved concentration, speed and fine motor dexterity. In a series of experiments, participants were shown images of baby animals, adult animals, pleasant food or neutral objects to test the impact on task performance.

In each experiment, there was a marked increase in performance after looking at pictures of adorable baby animals. Some experiments showed as much as a 43.9 per cent increase in speed, accuracy and dexterity for the ‘cute animals’ group, compared to just 11.9 per cent for the ‘adult animals’ group.

Here’s the graph to prove it: