Comments on: Why Do We Yawn?

By: Ashlee

Ashlee — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:24:00 +0000

i hate yawning…but watching my friend look at this website made me yawn…..GGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!

By: Denise

Denise — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:22:00 +0000

haha i have been having a yawning fit for tha past 3 days…i simply cannot stop. and while researching this website i have yawned about every 5 seconds…woops there goes another unknown fact called a yawn lol this is realy agravating!!! haha
DA

By: theYerg

theYerg — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:27:00 +0000

I too felt victim to yawning while reading this…

By: nikky

nikky — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 05:14:00 +0000

seriously i yawned like half a million times while reading this :]

By: Matt Soniak

Matt Soniak — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 03:13:00 +0000

Folks,

I should point out that none of you are wrong about dogs passing along and catching yawns. In August, that was confirmed by experiments done by a team at the University of London.

Why didn’t I mention dogs? This story was written and posted way back in May or June. We’re just re-running some of out greatest hits from the last year.

By: KerriH

KerriH — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 03:05:00 +0000

I yawned twice.

I was surprised to see dogs not on the list of contagious yawners. My dogs most always yawn after I do or after the other one does. And I typically catch yawns from them too. Maybe we just spend WAY too much time together…

By: schubert malbas

schubert malbas — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 10:54:00 +0000

i yawned once while reading this. perhaps it’s some kind of confirmation bias or some other cognitive bias.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:24:00 +0000

I’m glad I’m not the only one who has given a yawn to a dog. Upon first hearing that dogs didn’t make the list, I was starting to think that I must’ve been imagining things. Besides, dogs are social creatures, too, so social causes for yawns ought to apply to them, too.

By: cindy

cindy — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:10:00 +0000

we have what are known as “mirror” neurons. upon seeing someone scratching their head, we at times unconsciously mimic them. yawning, being more expressive and obvious, is more often noticed. back to the subject though, these “mirror” neurons are probably the most reasonable answer for yawns. after all, don’t you catch yourself yawning when you’re not even tired just because you heard a prolonged release of co2?

By: Regan

Regan — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:48:00 +0000

Don’t have sound at work, but I believe this is the NPR piece from last year that indicated that some dogs yawn contagiously, while some humans do not:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16962788