Contagious yawning and the brain

Steven M. Platek, Feroze B. Mohamed,

Gordon G. Gallup Jr.

A summary by Erica Hunter

Background

• Empathic modeling hypothesis– Primitive expression of cognitive processes

involved in self awareness and theory of mind– Seeing someone yawn activates a system that is

also involved in consciously modeling other aspects of interpersonal mentality.

• Innate mirror neuron system– Automatically synchronizing own behaviours with

others’

How to test these? - Explore the neural correlates of contagious yawning when compared to laughing!

Hypothesis

• Viewing someone yawn will result in significant activation in right prefrontal substrates and midline cortical structures

Experimental Design

1. Use fMRI to measure BOLD responses while volunteers watch and respond to videos of people yawning and laughing.

2. Compare BOLD responses1. Yawn vs laugh; laugh vs yawn2. Yawn vs baseline; laugh vs baseline

Laughing = control (similar face and mouth movements; also contagious)

Results and Discussion

When contrasting yawn minus laugh…

• Unique neural substrates • Bilateral posterior cingulate

& precuneus – Self-referent processing– Retrieval of autobiographical

memories

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Supports EMPATHIC MODELING HYPOTHESIS!

Weaknesses and Confounds

• Small sample size

• Volunteer college students

The next step: Toddlers and contagious yawning - Why not?

References

• Platek, S. M., Mohamed, F. B., Gallup, G. G. Jr. (2005) Contagious yawning and the brain. Cognitive Brain Research, 23: 448-452. Doi:

• Anderson, J. R. and Meno, P. (2003) Psychological influences on yawning in children. Behaviour, Brain, and Cognition, 11(2): 2-7. Retrieved from http://cpl.revues.org/index390.html