Why do we also start yawning if we see somebody yawn?

Answer 1

and why did I just yawn reading that question? It's not sarcasm, I just saw the word yawn and suddenly did it.

Answer 2

The yawn reflex is often described as contagious: if one person yawns, this will cause another person to "sympathetically" yawn. Mythbusters attempted an experiment documenting this effect in episode 2.28, "Is Yawning Contagious?", with a conclusion of partly confirmed. The proximate cause for contagious yawning may lie with mirror neurons, i.e. neurons in the frontal cortex of certain vertebrates, which upon being exposed to a stimulus from conspecific (same species) and occasionally interspecific organisms, activates the same regions in the brain. Mirror neurons have been proposed as a driving force for imitation which lies at the root of much human learning, e.g. language acquisition. Yawning may be an offshoot of the same imitative impulse.

Answer 3

This is how the sub conscious mind works. I remember when I was in school my 7th grade teacher did that experiment in class. She yawned and had someone else recording how many other people would yawn after seeing her yawn. It was just about 1/3 of the class. This works well with a large group of people. I remember that "Myth Busters" tried this before with individuals and did not work well, then they tried larger groups and got a better response.

Answer 4

it is our brain that takes activates such things, for example when someone smiles to you, you smile back, when you see man drinking water you also feel like drinking water.
other thing subcouncious, if some though appears in our subcouncious it can get to our brain, and while mind stimulates brain , our brain stimulates body to action, the thing is that subcouncious you can think about yawning and in effect your brain find this though and find it easy to realize so you yawn, and your wish has been produced.
It seems to be contagious.There have been many tests and even featured on Mythbusters and it's pretty much either comfirmed nor denied. But I think it is...
Its called mirroring. Also yawning doe`s not mean you are tired,Its due to lack of OXYGEN to the brain,
The brain is telling you to draw in more oxygen.
Due to this when you see someone else yawn YOUR brain
subconsciously thinks you are taking oxygen from it so then you as others do YAWN too.

Answer 5

I had the same question when I was little and after reading an article that said that we yawn because the brain needs oxygen I was satisfied. But, I went to a museum and there was an FYI note that said "Scientist don't really know why we yawn" and I was really mad. What other things have they lied to us about?

Answer 6

I read about this somewhere. I cant remember the whole of it but basically it's because when we see someone yawning we are reminded of tiredness. Even if that person is simply popping their ears, we subconciously are reminded of it. Our body then tells us that since they are tired, it must be sleep time and our natural reaction when tired is yawning.

Answer 7

Because yawning is contagious. I just did it now after reading your question. Weird.

Answer 8

Power of suggestion.

Answer 9

hi, i think because it makes an impression in our mind

Answer 10

ITS a very catchy jester we do.