The aim of this study was to identify if isolation stress in cows could be reduced by viewing a picture of a peer's face. Three Japanese black cows were tested and another cow was used as a companion (Peer). One cow was tested a day under the following conditions and the order of testing the cows was fixed. At 9:00, one cow was housed in an experimental pen with the Peer in a neighbouring pen, and they could have tactile contact. At 11:30, the Peer was taken back to the home pen and the test cow was socially isolated until 12:00 (SI). At 12:00, the cow was exposed to one of four treatments: presenting the Peer in the neighbouring pen (P), a picture of the Peer's face (PF), a picture of a Holstein's face (HF) or a blank picture (B) until the test cow was taken back to the home pen at 15:00. They were tested four times and exposed to all the treatments. Behaviour during the treatment was recorded at 2-minutes intervals. The saliva of the cows was sampled at 11:30, 12:00, 12:30 and 14:00 to measure the concentrations of salivary cortisol and chromogranin A (pmol/ml), During SI, the concentration of chromogranin A increased (7.8±4.5 at 11:30, 15.7±4.6 at 12:00; ANOVA, P<0.01). After conducting PF, the concentration of chromogranin A decreased at 12:30 (8.9±1.6), but increased at 14:00 (17.8±4.8) (ANOVA, P<0.05). The concentration of chromogranin A at 12:30 in B (28.1±14.4) was higher than that in PF (Tukey HSD, P<0.10). The concentration of cortisol at 14:00 in PF (0.49±0.16) was higher than that in P (0.26±0.05) (Tukey HSD, P<0.10). It is suggested that PF might decrease the isolation stress of cows for a short period.