Seeing or hearing someone yawning can make you yawn. This phenomenon is not limited to humans; Some animals Also discover the contagious yawn.
But why is the yawn contagious?
Brain cells called mirror neurons can play a role in contagious yawning, Dr Charles Sweeta certified psychiatrist and medical advisor to Linear healthsaid live in an email. Mirror neurons respond to the actions we observe in others.
“When you see someone yawning, these neurons are triggered,” said Sweet. This neurological mechanism can explain why yawning is so easily spreads within social groups.
Research also shown that people and animals are more likely to yawn in response to the yawns of familiar individuals in relation to knowledge and foreigners. For example, in a 2013 studyDogs yawned more frequently by looking at their owner yawning than when they looked at a stranger to yawn. This model, known as “familiarity bias”, is probably drawn through attention, said Andrew GallupProfessor of teaching behavioral biology at Johns Hopkins University, because individuals naturally pay particular attention to those of their social circles.
In relation: Is it possible to avoid unwanted thoughts?
One hypothesis is that contagious yawning has evolved to stimulate the detection of threats within groups, Gallup said in Live Science in an email.
In a 2007 study published in the journal Evolutionary psychologyGallup and his colleagues discovered that yawning helps to cool the brain. This cooling effect can improve the alertness and the effectiveness of mental treatment in climbing, Gallup has hypothesized. If the yawn spreads through a group, it could help improve the awareness of the group threats, offered the team.
More Recent research By Gallup in humans, he has shown that the simple fact of seeing others yawn can improve the ability of an individual to detect threats, supporting more the idea that contagious yawning increases the levels of vigilance in a group.
Another hypothesis is that contagious yawning has evolved to maintain synchronized groups. Battles follow a circadian rhythm And often report transitions between activities. Thus, when the yawn spreads in a group, it can be used to align activity models and behavior, explained Gallup.
Support for this hypothesis comes from a recent study On Wild African lions (Panthera Leo). The researchers observed the yawning of 19 lions in two social groups and followed the link between the contagion of yawning and the motor synchrony – when individuals show the same behavior changes. The results were striking: lions which “caught” a yawn of another lion were 11 times more likely to reflect the movements of the lion which yawned first, compared to the lions which had not caught the yawn.
Not everyone is also sensitive to contagious yawning. In controlled studies, approximately 40% to 60% of typical volunteers Based in response to watching another person yawning in a video.
A key question of research is whether contagious yawning is linked to empathy. There have been several studies, but the results were mixed. “Some studies have found planned connections, while others do not demonstrate such a relationship,” said Gallup.
Although the first research suggested that autistic children were less likely to yawn in contagiously than non-self-self-like children, a follow -up study noted that when the participants were explicitly responsible for focusing on the building building, this difference has disappeared, explained Gallup, stressing that attention also plays a key role in the contagion of yawning.
One of the most coherent discoveries is the Negative association between contagious yawning and psychopathy. “Individuals who get a higher score on the measures of psychopathic features tend to be less sensitive to contagious yawning,” said Gallup. (Psychopathic features include selfishness, manipulation and inspection.)
“In the end, the contagious yawn consists less in being tired and more on the connection,” said Sweet. “This is your brainThe calm way to synchronize with people (and sometimes pets) around you. “”