Paper short abstract:

While browsing "kawaii" objects or not "kawaii" objects, I compared the two cases with or without communication by utterance. As a consequence of the analysis in those two factors showed that the communicating group significantly felt positive no matter which objects they were browsing.

Paper long abstract:

It is a common behavior for people who have similar tastes to share their feelings about an object related to "kawaii" and to communicate them linguistically. It seems that communication by utterance of "kawaii" has a positive effect on short-term mood by the action of relieving psychological stress and improves the adaptability of human relationships.

An experiment was conducted to measure short-term mood changes when viewing "kawaii" images, and when viewing with or without communication. The moods of the collaborators were measured using TDMS. The results were evaluated by analysis of variance.

The degree of activity, comfort, and arousal was increased when there was communication. Vitality increased after viewing the image with a high level of "kawaii", and it became comfortable and active.

However, in the case viewing images with a low level of "kawaii", there was no change in mood before and after viewing the images regardless of whether with or without communication, indicating that communication had no effect. This suggests that only linguistic communication related to "kawaii" may amplify pleasure emotions. As a result of the gender difference, the same results as those of all the collaborators were seen in male, but in the case of female, viewing images with a low "kawaii" impression made them feel uncomfortable and depressed mood regardless of communication. Therefore, for females, it was found that the image condition affects the short-term mood more than the communication condition.