You wake up for your 8 am class and grab a cup of coffee. While taking the bus the person next to you yawns and then you yawn. Next thing you know, the older lady sitting across from is yawning as well. It is a ripple effect, once someone yawns people around you usually yawn too. So, have you ever wondered if actually looking at someone yawning makes you yawn, or is it just coincident.
There is no sole reason for why we yawn, but there are many different theories. The most common answer to why we yawn is because we are tired. When people think of yawning they assume that the person is sleepy or bored. Another reason we yawn is due to the fact we see someone else yawn or even reading the word yawn. But are these reasons actually logical?
Well, there is actually a truth behind the yawn. In Cognitive Brain Research, researchers state that, “contagious yawning, the onset of a yawn triggered by seeing, hearing, reading, or thinking about another person yawn is a well-documented phenomenon.” Researchers from all over have conducted countless studies based on yawning, yet a lot of questions remain unanswered.
In one study, researchers showed a video of people yawning to their subjects and about half of the people who watched the video yawned. This research showed that there was a relationship between yawning, and watching someone yawn. It was a reliable study, however, it was not strong enough to prove anything due to the issue of chance.
In another study done by The Duke Center for Human Genome Variation, Elizabeth Cirulli, assistant professor of medicine at the Center for Human Genome Variation at Duke University School of Medicine stated that there is contagious yawning and spontaneous yawning. “Contagious yawning is a well-documented phenomenon that occurs only in humans and chimpanzees in response to hearing, seeing or thinking about yawning. It differs from spontaneous yawning, which occurs when someone is bored or tired. Spontaneous yawning is first observed in the womb, while contagious yawning does not begin until early childhood.”
The study did not end here. The researchers conducted a study where they gathered “328 healthy volunteers, who completed cognitive testing, a demographic survey, and a comprehensive questionnaire that included measures of empathy, energy levels and sleepiness.” They were going to test these volunteers and see if they were susceptible to yawning while watching a three-minute video of people yawning. The researchers were to record the number of times the subjects were to yawn during the course of the video. From the research, researchers conducted that, “certain individuals were less susceptible to contagious yawns than others, with participants yawning between zero and 15 times during the video. Of the 328 people studied, 222 contagiously yawned at least once.”
This is just the beginning with studies based on yawning, and in the future more studies should be done in order to explain yawning. A lot remains unknown but this is just a start to figuring out if “the yawn” is contagious.
I always found this so funny. In high school we knew once one person yawned it was down hill from there because the whole class was about to start yawning. My next blog post was actually going to be about contagious yawning because I was really interested in the reason behind it. So, it was interesting to find out that theres still so many unanswered questions on the topic!
I found the video study they tested: I lasted 8 yawns before I yawned… you guys try it (:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=46&v=AJXX4vF6Zh0
Another thing interesting I found out was that contagious yawning only occurs in humans and chimpanzees as a response to hearing, seeing, or even thinking about yawning. I wonder what it is about us and chimps that is so susceptible to yawning?
Now that we know that yawning is definitely contagious maybe they should try conducting a study where they monitor the brain to see what is triggered when someone else yawns that causes chain reaction of yawning.
This is a topic I have thought about quite often. I studied it in a psychology class, and one of the biggest explanations they came up with was mirror neurons. Which you can look at in more detail here. Mirror neurons are actually quite fascinating and they make a lot of sense, but so do many other things (as you mentioned in your post). I think it is quite interesting how yawning is such a simple thing that people do every day, yet, we still can’t figure it out. In my opinion, this kind of stuff really makes you view things from a different perspective.
Interesting read. I’ve been wondering why simply the sound, or just watching someone yawn can produce the reaction to yawn myself (I literally just yawned thinking about it. Right now.) I wonder if there has to be an exclusive combination to certain stimuli to produce it? For example, if I see a person mimicking a yawn, but don’t hear the sound effect, will the result be the same?