Why Is Yawning Contagious?

Have you ever heard of the echo phenomenon? This is when people automatically repeat other people’s words or actions. An example of an echo phenomenon can be when we see someone yawning and we imitate them almost immediately. But why is yawning contagious? Do any neuronal bases explain this phenomenon?

Psychologist Robert Provine (1986) said the following: “Yawning can have the dubious distinction of being the least understood common human behavior.” Years later, can we solve this question through neuroscience? Is there only one explanation for it or more than one? Let’s find out.

Why is yawning contagious?

According to a study by Romero et al. (2014), only humans, chimpanzees, dogs and wolves appear to have “contagious” yawning even though many animals yawn. But why does yawning become contagious? Let’s look at the case of humans and what some of the most relevant explanations say.

Activation of the engine area

A group of researchers from the University of Nottingham (England) conducted a research in 2017, which was published in Current Biology , where they tried to find an answer to the question of why yawning is contagious.

According to English researchers , this action is due to an automatic reflex in your brain. It is activated precisely in the area responsible for controlling the engine functions. According to the study, the tendency to follow other people’s yawns will thus originate from the brain’s primary motor cerebral cortex. This is the area that is responsible for performing movements through neuronal impulses.

What did the experiment consist of?

A total of 36 adult volunteers participated in the research. They were taught how to suppress the yawn, and were then asked to watch videos showing people yawning. Eventually, all the yawns that were released (including the oppressed) were counted.

Through transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) techniques, researchers analyzed the possible relationship between the neural base of yawning and motor tension.

Thus, the group found that a person who is exposed to “infectious yawning” is dependent on cortical arousal and physiological inhibition of their primary motor cortex. This would explain why some yawn more and others less. It also explains why some people seem to copy other people’s yawns, and others do not.

Can we suppress yawning?

So are we pre-programmed to start yawning when we see someone else yawning, or can we control this reflex? According to the same English researchers, the ability to resist this infection is limited. Furthermore, they also concluded that the fact that you are trying to suppress your yawns may actually increase the need to yawn.

In fact, through electrical stimulation during the experiment, they were able to see how increasing motor tension increased the tendency to follow the yawning of others. The truth is that we can not really control “contagious yawning” because we have an innate disposition to do so.

Why is yawning contagious ?: Understanding the causes of certain disorders

This study may actually help researchers studying other disorders. They may be able to more accurately determine the causes of disorders that have increased cortical tension or decreased physiological inhibition.

We are talking here about disorders such as dementia, autism, epilepsy or Tourette’s syndrome, among others. In these disorders, patients can not avoid certain echo phenomena (such as yawning), echolalia (repetition of words or expressions that the other person speaks) or echopractic (automatic repetition of the other person’s actions).

In this regard, the study leader, Georgina Jackson, Professor of Cognitive Neuropsychology at the Institute of Mental Health in Nottingham, explains the following.

In addition, Jackson adds that it can help patients with Tourette’s syndrome by reducing motor tension and then reducing tics.

Other explanations: empathy, genetics and synchronization

Prior to this study, other researchers tried to answer this question in a different way. Many of them suggested that communication about empathy was a possible explanation. Thus, when we see a person yawn, we feel unconscious compassion for them. We make the same gesture without being able to avoid it, as if we were their reflection.

This theory has many adherents. It suggests that the ability to interpret how others feel will lead us to put ourselves in place or to feel it in the same way, even in such “primary” actions as this. As a result, when you see someone else yawning, you will not be able to stop yourself from doing the same.

Some studies that try to explain why yawning is contagious refer to the activation of certain brain circuits that are characteristic of empathy. These are the circuits that contain the famous mirror neurons. These neurons will act as an inner reflex of the movements we observe in other people.

Another possible explanation for this phenomenon has to do with communication and synchronization. With this in mind, researcher and professor of psychology Matthew Campbell states the following:

Why is yawning contagious? – Make the group synchronous

This explanation suggests that it would be an imitation action, and that copying the yawn would make the group synchronized. Campbell says we can see this in our eating habits. When it’s time to eat, everyone eats, and here we can consider eating as contagious. This can also be true when we are tempted to copy the movements and attitudes of others.

In short, here are the two main explanations behind this phenomenon. You can choose which one you think is right!