09-16-2010, 07:41 AM | #1 |
The Dank Side of the Moon
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Contagious Yawning...
Interesting:
ScienceDaily (Sep. 15, 2010) — If someone near you yawns, do you yawn, too? About half of adults yawn after someone else does in a phenomenon called contagious yawning. Now a new study has found that most children aren't susceptible to contagious yawning until they're about 4 years old -- and that children with autism are less likely to yawn contagiously than others...... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0915080427.htm |
09-16-2010, 08:31 AM | #2 |
Wizard
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It's a shame it doesn't persist.
You could yawn, and set someone else off, then you they set you off, so you yawn again and that sets them off again.... Come to think of it; I've just been describing our team meetings. |
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09-16-2010, 09:12 AM | #3 |
Grand Sorcerer
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I tend to yawn when someone around me does.
I found this also at ScienceDaily: University of Albany researchers suggest that yawning does not promote sleep but helps mitigate the need to sleep. Since yawning occurs when brain temperature rises, sending cool blood to the brain serves to maintain optimal levels of mental efficiency. Therefore, the psychologists say, when mental processing slows and someone yawns, the tendency for other people to yawn contagiously might have evolved to promote group vigilance as a means of detecting danger. |
09-16-2010, 09:36 AM | #4 |
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Didn't myth busters do an episode on this? I didn't watch it but I am curious about their experiments.
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09-16-2010, 09:56 AM | #5 |
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09-16-2010, 11:10 AM | #6 |
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I remember reading some years ago about a study on yawn contagion among apes. The details are a bit fuzzy but I think they established that there was contagion. The article mentioned a possible next step of the study, to find out whether trans-species contagion also occurred: if you see a chimp yawning, will it set you off (or vice versa)? I wonder if they ever got round to that study.
I am a big yawner (hey, the spell checker is not screaming at me, does that mean it's a real word?), and people around me keep complaining about it Right now, just typing about it makes me want to yawn. |
09-16-2010, 11:20 AM | #7 |
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09-16-2010, 12:08 PM | #8 | |||
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Quote:
Quote:
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09-16-2010, 12:10 PM | #9 |
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I think I remember they tried it remotely, with one chimp watching the other yawn on TV, and it worked. But it was a long time ago, I may be wrong.
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09-16-2010, 01:22 PM | #10 |
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It would be cool if it worked from a distance and didn't have to be seen. Like if I yawn in my office and the guy next door in his yawns in response without even knowing why.
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