When a person is tired or bored, they feel the impulse to yawn, which usually happens involuntarily. Aside from inner stimulation, humans also tend to yawn when they see other people doing it. Yawning is often difficult to resist as soon as the urge arises.
Yawning has baffled experts as they try to figure out its purpose. They are also challenged to discover why yawns are contagious.
Searching the Answer About Why Yawns Are Contagious
Contagious yawning is set off when a person observes another person yawn. This is known as echophenomena, which refers to an individual's tendency to imitate another person's words or actions automatically.
A group of scientists from the University of Nottingham conducted research that reveals that contagious yawning is automatically triggered by a primitive reaction in the region of the brain called the primary motor cortex, which is responsible for motor function.
In this study, 36 participants watched video clips of other people yawning, and they were instructed to avoid either imitating the act or allowing themselves to do it. The volunteers were recorded while watching, and the number of their yawns and stifled yawns were counted.
TMS measures gathered by the researchers served as predictors of contagious yawning. It also demonstrates that the tendency of every person to participate in contagious yawning is due to cortical excitability in their brain's primary motor cortex. The result of the study shows that the urge experienced by individuals is increased as they try to stop themselves from yawning.
In a separate investigation, a team of researchers from the University of Vienna in Austria also tried to discover why yawns are contagious. They tested the theory that yawning serves as the cooling mechanism of the brain. One hundred twenty pedestrians recorded their self-reported yawn contagion during winter and summer. As the researchers found out that the reported yawning was lower during winter than in summer, they concluded that contagious yawning is indeed involved in brain thermoregulation.
READ ALSO: Longer Yawning Means Bigger Brains; Why Do Animals Yawn?
Yawning as Social Behavior Among Humans and Animals
Contagious yawning is not limited to humans since it can also be observed in different social vertebrates. The most common form of contagious yawning occurs between species of the same kind. However, evidence was also discovered that interspecific contagious yawning could happen among captivity animals. Some non-human animals were reported to yawn as a response to their yawning human.
For instance, a study of domesticated dogs reveals that these animals mimic the behavior of their caregivers, while packs of wolves in zoological parks can be seen to have yawn contagion by a team of researchers who study them.
In the animal kingdom, many vertebrates are found to yawn like humans do. This shared behavior is mostly recognized among mammals such as chimpanzees, dogs, elephants, and wolves.
According to National Geographic, contagious yawning benefits the animals who live in cooperative societies. One theory also suggests that this behavior may have evolved to strengthen group vigilance among social species.
RELATED ARTICLE: Contagious Yawning, Also Seen in Orangutans
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