A Conversation for SEx - Science Explained

SEx: Why is yawning contangious

Post 1

benjaminpmoore

Alright, linguistic pedantry, it isn't, it's not vrial or anything. But you know what I mean, someone yawns, and everyone else yawns until someone says 'stop it- you're making me yawn'. Any ideas why this is?


SEx: Why is yawning contangious

Post 2

Taff Agent of kaos

psychological response

i started yawning when i read the post

subject 1 yawns. closing eyes

other subjects assume it is safe to close eyes as well so yawn, getting an extra bit of needed oxygen into the system

smiley - bat


SEx: Why is yawning contangious

Post 3

benjaminpmoore

is that:
a)received wisdom
b) and intelligent guess
c) stuff you just made up


SEx: Why is yawning contangious

Post 4

Titania (gone for lunch)

'In humans, yawning has an infectious quality (i.e., seeing a person yawning, talking to someone on the phone who is yawning, or just thinking of yawning can trigger yawning) which is a typical example of positive feedback. Infectious yawning has also been noted in chimpanzees and dogs.'

From a Wiki article - sorry, but no h2g2 article showed up on the first page of google results.


SEx: Why is yawning contangious

Post 5

Titania (gone for lunch)

Using the h2g2 search function however results in this: A54557607

Too bad it didn't show up on google though...


SEx: Why is yawning contangious

Post 6

Taff Agent of kaos

""is that:
a)received wisdom
b) and intelligent guess
c) stuff you just made up""


yes!


SEx: Why is yawning contangious

Post 7

BagginsLover

I was always led to beleive that it was to do with oxygen levels - We yawn not because we are tired particularly, but because the tiredness causes us to breathe more shallowly (is that a word?) and so a yawn is triggered to get more oxygen into our systems. The 'catching' part of it comes in in case the atmospheric oxygen levels are low, so if you see someone yawn, your brain goes 'ooh, there might not be much oxygen about, I'd better get a deep breath in just in case' and so you yawn too. smiley - ok


SEx: Why is yawning contangious

Post 8

Mr. Dreadful - But really I'm not actually your friend, but I am...

The last I heard about yawning was that nobody really knows what function it performs... the oxygen levels thing being the best hypothesis.


SEx: Why is yawning contangious

Post 9

8584330

University at Albany researchers Andrew C. Gallup and Gordon G. Gallup, Jr. conducted a study outlined in the May 2007 issue in Evolutionary Psychology (Volume 5.1., 2007). The researchers concluded that "people do not yawn because they need oxygen, since experiments show that raising or lowering oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood fails to produce the reaction. Rather, yawning acts as a brain-cooling mechanism. The brain burns up to a third of the calories we consume, and as a consequence generates heat."

Here is a link to an article:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070621161826.htm


SEx: Why is yawning contangious

Post 10

benjaminpmoore

Interesting stuff, HN, that's certainly a plausible sounding explanation. Thanks smiley - ok


SEx: Why is yawning contangious

Post 11

KB

I don't entirely buy the oxygen idea. When I yawn I don't necessarily inhale any differently, it's a stretching of the facial muscles as much as anything else.


SEx: Why is yawning contangious

Post 12

Tumsup

I like the motor neurone theory. We apes ape each other. Brain scans show that if we see someone extend his hand say, the motor part of our brain associated with that motion lights up. It also works by suggestion. If the experimenter asks the subject to thinks about moving his hand but not actually move it, the motor part of his brain still shows activity.

If we see or hear someone yawning, we just physically empathize. A wordless suggestion elicits a wordless response.


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