Cuteness Engineering

Marcus, Aaron; Kurosu, Masaaki; Ma, Xiaojuan; Hashizume, Ayako

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-61961-3

Cited by 27 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…The meaning of kawaii as an affective state has evolved over the years from "ashamed" and "pitiable" to the contemporary "a positive emotion related to the social motivation for engaging and staying with preferable persons and objects, which is typically observed in affection toward babies and infants, but not limited to them" (Nittono, 2016, p. 91). Kawaii as an artistic and cultural style remains an essential part of Japanese culture and has a huge impact on the toy, fashion, art, and film industries, especially, but not exclusively, targeting girls and young women (Marcus et al, 2017).…”

Section: Cuteness As a Universal Constructmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Metrics for pinpointing baby-like characteristics of human faces and measuring the level of cuteness in human faces utilize various mathematical techniques such as models that allow altering the parameters of human or animal faces (Jones, 1995;Glocker et al, 2009a;Borgi et al, 2014), models to determine the level of cuteness in human faces (Wang et al, 2015), and models for approximating human perception of cuteness (Makula et al, 2017). Despite some of these models having relatively low accuracy rates (e.g., Makula et al, 2017), research investigating the level of cuteness in images of faces with altered attributes is becoming increasingly popular and its findings have been used to inform product design and consumer research, where specific parameters of cuteness may affect product popularity (e.g., Marcus et al, 2017). Metrics for judging the level of cuteness in images of human and animal faces include self-report scales (e.g., Nittono et al, 2022;Zhou et al, 2022) and discrimination tasks (Nittono et al, 2022).…”

Section: Cuteness As a Universal Constructmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The construct of cuteness: A validity study for measuring content and evoked emotions on social media

Golonka

Jones²,

Sheehan³

et al. 2023

Front. Psychol.

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Social media users are often exposed to cute content that evokes emotional reactions and influences them to feel or behave certain ways. The cuteness phenomenon in social media has been scarcely studied despite its prevalence and potential to spread quickly and affect large audiences. The main framework for understanding cuteness and emotions related to cuteness outside of social media is baby schema (having juvenile characteristics), which triggers parental instincts. We propose that baby schema is a necessary but not sufficient component of explaining what constitutes cuteness and how people react to it in the social media context. Cute social media content may also have characteristics that evoke approach motivations (a desire to interact with an entity, generally with the expectation of having a positive experience) that can manifest behaviorally in sharing and other prosocial online behaviors. We developed and performed initial validation for measures in social media contexts of: (1) cute attributes that encompass both baby schema and other proposed cuteness characteristics (the Cuteness Attributes Taxonomy, CAT) and (2) the emotional reactions they trigger (Heartwarming Social Media, HSM). We used the Kama Muta Multiplex Scale (KAMMUS Two), as previously validated measure of kama muta (an emotion akin to tenderness; from Sanskrit, “moved by love”) as a measure of emotional reaction to cute stimuli and the dimension Cute Content of the Social Media Emotions Annotation Guide (SMEmo-Cute Content) as a developed measure of gestalt cute content to help validate our newly developed measures. Using 1,875 Polish tweets, our results confirmed that cute social media content predicted a kama muta response, but not all KAMMUS Two subscales were sensitive to cute content, and that the HSM measure was a better indicator of the presence of cute content. Further, the CAT measure is an effective means of categorizing cute attributes of social media content. These results suggest potential differences between in-person, online, and social media experiences evoking cute emotional reactions, and the need for metrics that are developed and validated for use in social media contexts.

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Section: Cuteness As a Universal Constructmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Cuteness As a Universal Constructmentioning

confidence: 99%

The construct of cuteness: A validity study for measuring content and evoked emotions on social media

Golonka

Jones²,

Sheehan³

et al. 2023

Front. Psychol.

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“…Smart wearable devices, such as glasses, watches, and bracelets, are already commercially available today; however, they have not become mainstream and exhibit a slower diffusion than other portable technologies, such as smartphones (Adapa, Nah, Hall, Siau, & Smith, 2018;Kalantari, 2017). It is noteworthy that the acceptance of wearable devices is influenced by aesthetic factors, such as compelling design and uniqueness (Adapa et al, 2018), even involving cuteness as an emotional appeal (Marcus, Kurosu, Ma, & Hashizume, 2017). Therefore, such artifacts have a twofold essentiality, being perceived by consumers as a combination of 'fashion' and 'technology, namely as "fashnology" artifacts (Rauschnabel et al, 2016).…”

Section: Interactions In the Physical And Digital Continuummentioning

confidence: 99%

Seven HCI Grand Challenges

Stephanidis

Salvendy

Antona

et al. 2019

International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction

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344

111

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This article aims to investigate the Grand Challenges which arise in the current and emerging landscape of rapid technological evolution towards more intelligent interactive technologies, coupled with increased and widened societal needs, as well as individual and collective expectations that HCI, as a discipline, is called upon to address. A perspective oriented to humane and social values is adopted, formulating the challenges in terms of the impact of emerging intelligent interactive technologies on human life both at the individual and societal levels. Seven Grand Challenges are identified and presented in this article: Human-Technology Symbiosis; Human-Environment Interactions; Ethics, Privacy and Security; Well-being, Health and Eudaimonia; Accessibility and Universal Access; Learning and Creativity; and Social Organization and Democracy. Although not exhaustive, they summarize the views and research priorities of an international interdisciplinary group of experts, reflecting different scientific perspectives, methodological approaches and application domains. Each identified Grand Challenge is analyzed in terms of: concept and problem definition; main research issues involved and state of the art; and associated emerging requirements. BACKGROUNDThis article presents the results of the collective effort of a group of 32 experts involved in the community of the Human Computer Interaction International (HCII) Conference series. The group's collaboration started in early 2018 with the collection of opinions from all group members, each asked to independently list and describe five HCI grand challenges. During a one-day meeting held on the 20th July 2018 in the context of the HCI International 2018 Conference in Las Vegas, USA, the identified topics were debated and challenges were formulated in terms of the impact of emerging intelligent interactive technologies on human life both at the individual and societal levels. Further analysis and consolidation led to a set of seven Grand Challenges presented herein. This activity was organized and supported by the HCII Conference series.

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“…It is often translated into English as ‘cute’ or ‘pretty’ ( Yomota, 2006 ). According to a dictionary survey ( Marcus et al, 2017 ), the English word ‘cute’ means ‘pleasant, attractive, clever, etc.’, and the English word ‘pretty’ means ‘pleasing, attractive, etc.’ However, more than the English words ‘cute’ and ‘pretty’, Japanese kawaii has multiple connotations. According to Nittono’s (2016) study based on the largest Japanese dictionary Nihon Kokugo Daijiten ‘Complete Japanese-Language dictionary’ published in 2000, ‘kawai-i (adjective)’ has different meanings; for example, it means ‘miserable’, ‘attractive’, ‘lovely’, ‘innocent’, ‘small and beautiful’, and ‘trivial’ (see also Kinsella (1995) for a study on describing the meanings of kawaii).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, it must be noted that Japanese speakers experience situations daily wherein they feel kawaii ( Nittono, 2019 ). This intuitive feeling of kawaii has become the focus of research in a variety of academic fields such as behavioural science (including psychology) ( Nittono, 2016 , 2019 ) and Kansei/affective engineering ( Ohkura, 2017 , 2019 ), as well as cultural studies (e.g., Kinsella, 1995 ; Yomota, 2006 ; Marcus et al, 2017 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What’s in a Japanese kawaii ‘cute’ name? A linguistic perspective

Kumagai

2022

Front. Psychol.

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While the concept termed as kawaii is often translated into English as ‘cute’ or ‘pretty’, it has multiple connotations. It is one of the most significant topics of investigation in behavioural science and Kansei/affective engineering. This study aims to explore linguistic (phonetic and phonological) features/units associated with kawaii. Specifically, it examines, through experimental methods, what kinds of phonetic and phonological features are associated with kawaii, in terms of the following three consonantal features: place of articulation, voicing/frequency, and manner of articulation. The results showed that the features associated with kawaii are: [labial], [high frequency], and [sonorant]. The factors associated with kawaii may include the pouting gesture, babyishness, smallness, femininity, and roundness. The study findings have practical implications due to their applicability regarding the naming of anime characters and products characterised by kawaii.

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Cuteness Engineering

Cited by 27 publications

References 0 publications

The construct of cuteness: A validity study for measuring content and evoked emotions on social media

The construct of cuteness: A validity study for measuring content and evoked emotions on social media

Seven HCI Grand Challenges

What’s in a Japanese kawaii ‘cute’ name? A linguistic perspective

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