why is it that?

Question

when people yawn it makes me yawn even looking at a picture of a baboon yawning makes me yawn.

Answer 1

love the way u put up the Q..cant help but Yawn & laugh aloud...
Well, one popular explanation is that yawning allows you to get rid of too much carbon dioxide in your system and increase your oxygen supply.
A yawn is often associated with a person being tired, but this is not always the cause for a yawn. People yawn for many reasons including stress, boredom, emotion and over-work.
Other hypotheses suggest that the same chemicals in our brain that affect our moods and emotions cause us to yawn.
The obvious: yawn contagion is largely unconscious. Wherever it might affect the brain, it bypasses the known brain circuitry for consciously analyzing and mimicking other people’s actions.
This circuitry is called the “mirror-neuron system,” because it contains a special type of brain cells, or neurons, that become active both when their owner does something, and when he or she senses someone else doing the same thing.
Research couldnt find eve the true reasons though...
well, r u yawning while reading this?

Answer 2

Well, as I understand it (from a layman's point of view), the act of yawning that goes unprovoked (in essence, no one else is yawning and no pictures of yawning are near you) indicates that you are tired. It comes from lack of oxygen to the brain and the yawn is allowing more air to go into your body.

If you are yawning because those are yawning around you, there are a variety of reasons. These might include just the basic fact that you are yawning because others yawn, just like you might look to the right if others do it, or you might scratch at an imaginary itch if you see someone else scratching.

Another reason is that you are feeling sympathetic to the person, as a yawn can mean that you are doing so as a sympathetic response to a primal activity.

If a picture itself is doing this to you, then it's probably like Pavlov's dog and you are just well trained to yawn at only the simple image of someone or something yawning.

Hope this helps.

Love as always,

Sebastian

Answer 3

The power of suggestion. For instance to talk about taking a bite out of a lemon creates a almost virtual sensation even if you are not currently eating a lemon. Memetics is also a interesting however it may have less to do with that. Memetics is basicaly a idea or a thought being spread out amongst a group of people, and how it evolves over time. Yawns can almost be seen as psychologicaly contagious. I remember once I was in a room with friends, my gf yawned, and within 10 minutes everyone in the room yawned atleast once.

Answer 4

the best explanation i have ever heard.... we evolved from monkeys/apes and when they go to bed they all nap and sleep together and that was their way to communicate that it was nap/ sleep time, and through evolution it is almost like an instinct to yawn when you see someone else yawn... i dont really know if that is true but it is the best answer i could come up with :)

Answer 5

I don't know why but yawning is the most infectious thing we can do.
CJ

Answer 6

human brain subconciously trying to establish an emotional connection to the other party whether its a babe or baboon resulting in the mimicking/mirroring of each other's behaviour.

Answer 7

I have always wondered that, try as you might to stop yawning, you cant..... Mad or what??????

Answer 8

Because similar energies attract the same reactions. Please do not be offended. I think your question is kind of humorous and I liked it.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with your loved ones!

Answer 9

Funny how that works huh?

Answer 10

Not sure - do your knuckles scrape along the ground when you walk?