Why do you think yawns are "contagious"?

Question

did you yawn right now? lol ^_^

Please star if you like this question! :c)

Answer 1

The yawn reflex is often described as contagious: if one person yawns, this will cause another person to "sympathetically" yawn. Observing another person's yawning face (especially his/her eyes), or even reading about or thinking about yawning, can cause a person to yawn. You could possibly be yawning from reading this section or looking at these pictures. However, only about 55% of people in a given audience will respond to such a stimulus; fewer if only the mouth is shown in a visual stimulus.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. A 2007 study found that children with autism spectrum disorders, unlike typical children, did not yawn after seeing videos of other people yawning; this supports the claim that contagious yawning is based on the capacity for empathy.

Answer 2

Contagious yawning is real, and it's "probably programmed into us," The action of a mouth opening is not what compels others to yawn, studies have demonstrated that showing someone a photo of a wide-open mouth does not induce a yawn. Conversely, holding a hand over the mouth while yawning doesn't prevent it from being contagious.

Contagious yawns appear "basically to be a visual response," Between 40 and 60 percent of people who watch videos or hear talk about yawning also end up doing the deed.

Answer 3

It's a neurobiological phenomenon. When you see somebody yawn, it triggers a population of neurons that generate a reflex yawning action of your own.

A more difficult question is why we yawn in the first place. Some people say it's an attempt to increase blood flow to the brain, but as far as I know there's no proof of this. It may just be an explicit way for the organism to tell itself, "hey, Sleepyhead. Go to bed already."

Answer 4

it is most likely psychological, people don't realize they are yawning because someone else did until they look over and see someone else yawning.

Answer 5

Yawning is contagious because people breathe out and spread germs to air......

I'm not sure about this...