Catching the Zzzzzzzzzz’s
Does reading about the study by scientists about contagious yawning make you want to yawn or even to flat-out start yawning? Not because you are bored reading about yet another research study into the connections between empathy and autism, but because the mere mention of yawning, and “contagious yawning” at that, makes you feel tired and in need of opening up your mouth real wide, stretching your arms ride, finding a nice couch to lie down on…… Or maybe this photo of a person in mid-yawn on the ABC.net.au website will get that urge in you.
Autistic children were included in the study because of the notion that autistic persons lack empathy, the ability to imagine what it is like to be in “someone else’s shoes”:
Scientists have long known that one yawn often leads others to follow suit but what triggers the phenomenon is not as clear, says Dr Atsushi Senju, a researcher at the University of London’s Birkbeck College, who worked on the study.
Some believe it is simply a reflex. Others suggest the same mechanisms in the brain that make people feel empathy also cause them to yawn when they see others doing the same, he says.
The team tested the reaction of children with and without autism when watching video clips of people yawning and then simply moving their mouths.
The researchers found the children with autism, a developmental condition that severely affects social interaction and communication including empathy, yawned less than other children during clips of people yawning.
Both groups of children yawned the same amount when watching the video of people only moving their mouths, showing that empathy was the key, Senju says.
More than just opening your mouth, a yawn is being taken here to be a sort of physiological symptom and even symbol of being tired. I have often seen one student in one of my classes yawn and then another, and then another, and then the whole class is telling me that they are tired and why they do need to do the assignment. I have never, indeed, seen Charlie yawn in imitation of anyone else doing so; when he yawns, it means that he, and he alone, is tired. But just because he does not yawn when I do, does not mean he notes and feels something about me being tired.
And maybe it’s not such a bad thing to be free from such a contagion.
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Health, Psychology, Science
2 opinions for Catching the Zzzzzzzzzz’s
Ian Parker
Aug 20, 2007 at 4:07 pm
This strikes me as an issue related to so-called mirror neurons, but as usual one that researchers are over-interpreting. Potential Anterior Insula and ACC issues in those with ASD could account for the lack of a yawn response. Having said that, in no way does the lack of an ‘automatic’ response (for yawning or other actions) indicate that autistics are incapable of empathy, but instead that empathy may be more of a reasoned than an automatic response.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Aug 21, 2007 at 1:50 am
Or maybe that showing empathy in a certain way is a sort of learned response?
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: