Why Are Yawns So infectious?
Why Are Yawns So infectious?
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Next time you're sitting near someone who yawns, try this: Don't yawn. Odds are, you'll find that it's pretty difficult to hold back. The reason that it's hard to repress a yawn, especially when someone nearby is doing it and you're trying hard not to — appears to reside in the area of the brain that's responsible for motor function, a new study from England finds. Scientists refer to the urge to yawn when you see someone else doing it as contagious yawning. This is a type of "echo phenomenon." In other words, it's an automatic imitation of another person, in the journal Current Biology. Other types of echo phenomena include "echolalia" and "echopraxia"

The researchers found that the participants were only partially successful in resisting yawning: Fewer "full yawns" were observed, but the number of "stifled yawns" increased, according to the study. And when the participants were told to resist yawning, the urge to yawn went up. In other words, "the 'urge' to yawn is increased by trying to stop yourself" from doing so, senior study author Georgina Jackson, a professor of cognitive neuropsychology at the University of Nottingham in England, said in a statement.

The researchers also found that the propensity for "catching" a yawn was linked to the levels of brain activity in a person's motor cortex — the more activity in the area, the more inclined the person would be to yawn. Indeed, when the researchers applied electrical currents to the area, the urge to yawn increased. 

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