23,275 research outputs found

    Yawn on Way?

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    Nail a tiny lever on a fumed, well-let sewer. An Amtrak car is evil, one-post angel. A snail likes a can. Is Atlas not Roman? Is Don Regan a mega-star? A stage manager nods. In a Morton Salt, as in a case Kilian\u27s Ale, gnats open olives. I rack art, man. Are we still (lewd emu fan or Evelyn) Italian

    First evidence of yawn contagion in a wild monkey species

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    Yawn contagion occurs when individuals yawn in response to the yawn of others (triggers). This is the first account of yawn contagion in wild geladas (Theropithecus gelada), a monkey species that shows yawn contagion in captivity and is organized in core units (one-male/bachelor groups) forming multilevel associations. In a population of geladas from the Kundi plateau (Ethiopia) we found that the yawning response was highest when geladas could perceive a triggering yawn, which confirms that yawn contagion is present in the wild. Yawn duration, mouth-opening degree and presence/absence of vocalisation (possibly modulating yawn detectability) did not affect the likelihood of contagion. Males and females, known to be both implicated in movement initiation within groups, were similarly powerful as yawn triggers. Instead, group membership and responder sex had a significant role in shaping the phenomenon. Yawn contagion was highest between individuals belonging to different core units and males were most likely to respond to others’ yawns. Because males have a non-negligible role in inter-group coordination, our results suggest that yawn contagion may have a communicative function that goes beyond the basic unit leve

    Yawn Contagion and Empathy in Homo sapiens

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    The ability to share others' emotions, or empathy, is crucial for complex social interactions. Clinical, psychological, and neurobiological clues suggest a link between yawn contagion and empathy in humans (Homo sapiens). However, no behavioral evidence has been provided so far. We tested the effect of different variables (e.g., country of origin, sex, yawn characteristics) on yawn contagion by running mixed models applied to observational data collected over 1 year on adult (>16 years old) human subjects. Only social bonding predicted the occurrence, frequency, and latency of yawn contagion. As with other measures of empathy, the rate of contagion was greatest in response to kin, then friends, then acquaintances, and lastly strangers. Related individuals (r≥0.25) showed the greatest contagion, in terms of both occurrence of yawning and frequency of yawns. Strangers and acquaintances showed a longer delay in the yawn response (latency) compared to friends and kin. This outcome suggests that the neuronal activation magnitude related to yawn contagion can differ as a function of subject familiarity. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that yawn contagion is primarily driven by the emotional closeness between individuals and not by other variables, such as gender and nationality

    Mouths wide open: yawning as a communicative behavior in dogs

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    2001 Summer.Includes bibliographical references (pages 45-46).Yawning is an action humans are very familiar with, yet this behavior is not unique to our species. Most vertebrate animals demonstrate yawning behavior. The cause of yawning is still uncertain, but yawns across vertebrate species seem to be concentrated around transitions between sleep and activity. Our most popular companion animal, Canis familiaris, also has periods of yawning before and after sleep. Dogs are naturally social living creatures and rely extensively on body language as a form of communication between group members. Behaviorists have suggested that some dog yawns are part of this visual communication system. The object of this observational study was to confirm that dogs have two main yawn types: a "rest" yawn that occurs between sleep-activity transitions, and a "social" yawn occurring during social interactions. Social interactions in this study referred to both dog-dog and human-dog interactions. Communicative yawning is performed to displace anxiety in an individual dog or to pacify aggression or excitement in other individuals. The frequency of rest yawns was predicted to be higher than that of social yawns. Both yawn types were morphologically the same, so the context of a yawn was used to indicate whether the yawn occurred for rest or communication. Even when recording the context of a yawn, distinguishing between displacement and pacification intentions was very difficult. Therefore, yawns motivated by displacement or pacification were collectively considered social in function. Because social yawns only occur in the presence of other individuals, dogs were observed in the social settings of dog daycare and obedience classes. Individual dogs were observed for 15-20 minutes. Some observations were videotaped, but the majority were taken in real time. Behaviors immediately preceding and following a yawn were recorded using an ethogram tailored to rest, displacement, and pacification behaviors. This study indicated that the majority of dog yawns occur during social interactions and not during sleep transitions. Using the yawn as a gauge to indicate if a dog is anxious or relaxed is one step towards more effective communication between dogs and humans. A yawn can act as a behavioral cue for dog handlers, trainers, owners and anyone concerned with canine welfare

    In Bonobos Yawn Contagion Is Higher among Kin and Friends

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    In humans, the distribution of yawn contagion is shaped by social closeness with strongly bonded pairs showing higher levels of contagion than weakly bonded pairs. This ethological finding led the authors to hypothesize that the phenomenon of yawn contagion may be the result of certain empathic abilities, although in their most basal form. Here, for the first time, we show the capacity of bonobos (Pan paniscus) to respond to yawns of conspecifics. Bonobos spontaneously yawned more frequently during resting/relaxing compared to social tension periods. The results show that yawn contagion was context independent suggesting that the probability of yawning after observing others\u27 yawns is not affected by the propensity to engage in spontaneous yawns. As it occurs in humans, in bonobos the yawing response mostly occurred within the first minute after the perception of the stimulus. Finally, via a Linear Mixed Model we tested the effect of different variables (e.g., sex, rank, relationship quality) on yawn contagion, which increased when subjects were strongly bonded and when the triggering subject was a female. The importance of social bonding in shaping yawn contagion in bonobos, as it occurs in humans, is consistent with the hypothesis that empathy may play a role in the modulation of this phenomenon in both species. The higher frequency of yawn contagion in presence of a female as a triggering subject supports the hypothesis that adult females not only represent the relational and decisional nucleus of the bonobo society, but also that they play a key role in affecting the emotional states of others

    Familiarity bias and physiological responses in contagious yawning by dogs support link to empathy

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    In humans, the susceptibility to yawn contagion has been theoretically and empirically related to our capacity for empathy. Because of its relevance to evolutionary biology, this phenomenon has been the focus of recent investigations in nonhuman species. In line with the empathic hypothesis, contagious yawning has been shown to correlate with the level of social attachment in several primate species. Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) have also shown the ability to yawn contagiously. To date, however, the social modulation of dog contagious yawning has received contradictory support and alternative explanations (i.e., yawn as a mild distress response) could explain positive evidence. The present study aims to replicate contagious yawning in dogs and to discriminate between the two possible mediating mechanisms (i.e., empathic vs. distress related response). Twenty-five dogs observed familiar (dog’s owner) and unfamiliar human models (experimenter) acting out a yawn or control mouth movements. Concurrent physiological measures (heart rate) were additionally monitored for twenty-one of the subjects. The occurrence of yawn contagion was significantly higher during the yawning condition than during the control mouth movements. Furthermore, the dogs yawned more frequently when watching the familiar model than the unfamiliar one demonstrating that the contagiousness of yawning in dogs correlated with the level of emotional proximity. Moreover, subjects’ heart rate did not differ among conditions suggesting that the phenomenon of contagious yawning in dogs is unrelated to stressful events. Our findings are consistent with the view that contagious yawning is modulated by affective components of the behavior and may indicate that rudimentary forms of empathy could be present in domesticated dogs

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    Editor: Gwendolyn L. Yawn Photography: James Ma

    Are Yawns really Contagious? A Critique and Quantification of Yawn Contagion

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    Many diverse species yawn, suggesting ancient evolutionary roots. While yawning is widespread, the observation of contagious yawning is most often limited to apes and other mammals with sophisticated social cognition. This has led to speculation on the adaptive value of contagious yawning. Among this speculation are empirical and methodological assumptions demanding re-examination. In this paper we demonstrate that if yawns are not contagious, they may still appear to be so by way of a perceptual pattern-recognition error. Under a variety of conditions (including the assumption that yawns are contagious) we quantify (via models) the extent to which the empirical literature commits Type-1 error (i.e., incorrectly calling a spontaneous yawn ‘contagious’). We report the results of a pre-registered behavioural experiment to validate our model and support our criticisms. Finally, we quantify – based on a synthesis of behavioural and simulated data – how ‘contagious’ a yawn is by describing the size of the influence a ‘trigger’ yawn has on the likelihood of a consequent yawn. We conclude by raising a number of empirical and methodological concerns that aid in resolving higher-order questions regarding the nature of contagious yawning, and make public our model to help aid further study and understanding

    Dexter Yawn

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    Auditory contagious yawning is highest between friends and family members: support to the emotional bias hypothesis

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    Contagious yawning differs from spontaneous yawning because it occurs when an individual yawns in response to someone else’s yawn. In Homo sapiens and some nonhuman primates contagious yawning is higher between strongly than weakly bonded individuals. Up to date, it is still unclear whether this social asymmetry underlies emotional contagion (a basic form of empathy preferentially involving familiar individuals) as predicted by the Emotional Bias Hypothesis (EBH) or is linked to a top-down, selective visual attention bias (with selective attention being preferentially directed toward familiar faces) as predicted by the Attentional Bias Hypothesis (ABH). To verify whether the visual attentional bias explained the yawn contagion bias or not, in this study, we considered only yawns that could be heard but not seen by potential responders (auditory yawns). Around 294 of auditory yawning occurrences were extrapolated from over 2000 yawning bouts collected in free ranging humans for over nine years. Via GLMM, we tested the effect of intrinsic features (i.e., gender and age) and social bond (from strangers to family members) on yawn. The individual identity of the subjects (trigger and potential responder) was included as random factor. The social bond significantly predicted the occurrence of auditory yawn contagion, which was highest between friends and family members. A gender bias was also observed, with women responding most frequently to others’ yawns and men being responded to most frequently by others. These results confirm that social bond is per se one of the main drivers of the differences in yawn contagion rates between individuals in support of the EBH of yawn contagion
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