Journal
TRENDS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCES
Volume 20, Issue 7, Pages 545-558Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2016.05.003
Keywords
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Funding
- ERC [615539]
- MRC
- Wellcome Trust [090139]
- Intramural Research Program of the NIH, NICHD
- Barclay Foundation
- Center for Music in the Brain at Aarhus University - Danish National Research Foundation [DNRF117]
- Medical Research Council [1506102] Funding Source: researchfish
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Cuteness in offspring is a potent protective mechanism that ensures survival for otherwise completely dependent infants. Previous research has linked cuteness to early ethological ideas of a 'Kindchenschema' (infant schema) where infant facial features serve as 'innate releasing mechanisms' for instinctual caregiving behaviours. We propose extending the concept of cuteness beyond visual features to include positive infant sounds and smells. Evidence from behavioural and neuroimaging studies links this extended concept of cuteness to simple 'instinctual' behaviours and to caregiving, protection, and complex emotions. We review how cuteness supports key parental capacities by igniting fast privileged neural activity followed by slower processing in large brain networks also involved in play, empathy, and perhaps even higher-order moral emotions.
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