Yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn; yawn, yawn, yawn! The social, evolutionary and neuroscientific facets of contagious yawning

Abstract

Contagious yawning is a common phenomenon affecting upwards of 60% of healthy humans. It has also been observed, at a lesser rate, in great apes and other primates. Here I summarize the suggestion that contagious yawning is a primitive expression of social cognition, namely empathy. Susceptibility to contagious yawning is correlated with the speed in recognizing one's own face, theory of mind processing, and is also associated with activation in regions of the brain that have been associated with social cognitive processes. This suggests that contagious yawning may be an evolutionarily old process that begot a higher level of social cognition in certain species.