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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know

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Speaker 1: from how stuff Works dot Com? Hi, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, a staff writer here at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com with me or two of

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Speaker 1: my favorite editors, Chris Palette and Candice Gibson. Are you

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Speaker 1: guys today doing all right? Candice? What about you? That was?

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Speaker 1: That was a yawn from Candice? And actually I strangely

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Speaker 1: feel like yawning right now, which reminds me of an

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Speaker 1: article I wrote once. It's called does contagious yawning Mean

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Speaker 1: You're nice? Are you guys familiar with this? Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: pretty amazing to think that something we don't know much about,

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Speaker 1: like yawning, could actually be passed on because you see

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Speaker 1: somebody on and you have an empathetic feeling toward that person. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's kind of amazing, Candice. Yeah. And not only

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Speaker 1: is yawning a strange phenomenon, Empsy is pretty strange too,

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Speaker 1: depending on how it's expressed. And empathy, just to bring

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Speaker 1: you up to speed is just essentially the way that

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Speaker 1: you're relating to another person that shows that you're trying

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Speaker 1: to experience the feelings that they're experiencing, be them, you know,

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Speaker 1: positive or negative. UM. Empathy just shows that you're in

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Speaker 1: tune of what the other person is doing. You can

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Speaker 1: identify with them, you can put yourself in their shoes,

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Speaker 1: and a nutshell, perfect nutshell. That's pretty much the link

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Speaker 1: that people. Well, researchers have concluded that that we yawn

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Speaker 1: contagiously or were susceptible the contagious yawning because we feel empathy.

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Speaker 1: But that's pretty much where the solid explanations go. And

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Speaker 1: Candice is actually yawning. I can't get over it. I'm

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Speaker 1: just that nice. But you know, I did want to

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Speaker 1: tell you guys a little bit about yawning and some

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Speaker 1: of the theories that are floating around out there about it.

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Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't just mean you're what sleepy board

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Speaker 1: all the above, that's true. It could it could be

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Speaker 1: a number of things. Um. Some researchers have even gone

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Speaker 1: so far as to suggest that it could be a

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Speaker 1: little bit like your teeth or you're not your teeth,

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Speaker 1: your dog's tea when they he or she is baring

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Speaker 1: their teeth, the show anger or you know, they're being defensive.

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Speaker 1: They're saying, you know, maybe you are doing this you know,

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Speaker 1: subliminal response that you are going, you know, don't mess

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Speaker 1: with me. Yeah, don't mess with me exactly. And uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, people have even said that they can yawn

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Speaker 1: at their dog and their dog will yawn back. So

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Speaker 1: maybe the maybe it's something there to that theory. So

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Speaker 1: have they found in studies that people yawn when their

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Speaker 1: dogs bear their teeth at them? Um, you know, I

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Speaker 1: didn't see anything suggesting that, to be honest with you,

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Speaker 1: but uh, but it is interesting to know what I mean. Um,

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Speaker 1: I think you were saying earlier that uh, it may

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Speaker 1: actually be linked to a fight or flight response. Um,

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Speaker 1: and that you know when you put it that way,

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Speaker 1: that it's not so uh not so strange. Sure, we

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Speaker 1: were talking about the African savannah, the fight, the fight

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Speaker 1: or flight response you mean, right, well, yeah, there's a

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Speaker 1: theory that um, contagious yawning. Well, since you yawn maybe

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Speaker 1: to make yourself more alert, which would be ful when

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Speaker 1: you feel fear. Yeah, it's because it carries blood to

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Speaker 1: your brain right now, alert exactly. And if you feel

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Speaker 1: fierce safe because the lions approaching and you yawned a response. Uh,

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Speaker 1: through empathy, a fellow member of your species could pick

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Speaker 1: up that yawn and pass it along, and before you know,

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Speaker 1: if there's no one there for the lion to eat,

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Speaker 1: because they've all got adult, they got out of there.

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Speaker 1: Another theory has to do with the eyes as cues.

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Speaker 1: Have you guys heard about this the eyes? Have it? Actually?

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Speaker 1: A researcher that I read about did a study to

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Speaker 1: try and since the yawning his contagious, he wanted to

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Speaker 1: try and find a yawn that would would get everybody,

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Speaker 1: and the best he could do was about people who

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Speaker 1: when he'd cover up the mouth, um the eyes still

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Speaker 1: made people yawned, because he assumed that it was the big,

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Speaker 1: wide open mouth and the stretch that made people want

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Speaker 1: to yawn. But when he covered up the eyes and

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Speaker 1: just showed the mouth by itself, he got a slightly

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Speaker 1: less response. And he never could find a yawn that

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Speaker 1: was the perfect storm, one that would have always make

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Speaker 1: people yawned. So it seems like it's the eyes right

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Speaker 1: buy into that, because it's not like the parts of

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Speaker 1: your face don't work in conjunction with each other. When

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Speaker 1: I smile, my eyes crinkle or you know when I sneeze,

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Speaker 1: sign my news scrunches up. Everything sort of works in

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Speaker 1: conjunction with each other. So I totally buy that. And

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Speaker 1: another theory I buy is that people yawned because their

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Speaker 1: bodies aren't getting enough oxygen. And that's a quick way

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Speaker 1: to gulp a whole lot of air right in. It's

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Speaker 1: just open your mouth as well as it can go

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Speaker 1: and get it inside. And if others see you daring this,

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Speaker 1: they might take a cue that their environment isn't supplying

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Speaker 1: them with enough oxygen either, so they yawn just when

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Speaker 1: you do. Apparently, the fact that the eyes are served

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Speaker 1: as a cue for contagious yawning, it's supported by a

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Speaker 1: study of autistics or people with autism. Um that they

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Speaker 1: showed slides of people yawning, but they were shown just

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Speaker 1: the just the mouths. And apparently people with autism get

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Speaker 1: their cues from people's eyes. Uh, and they had no

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Speaker 1: action to it whatsoever. Um. Well, yeah, which is interesting,

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Speaker 1: and we know just sort of general science that people

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Speaker 1: with autism have um a little bit less of an

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Speaker 1: understanding of people's verbal or non verbal cues and said,

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Speaker 1: it's interesting that they didn't get both parts work in

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Speaker 1: conjunction to have an empathetic response, but that they just

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Speaker 1: responded to the eyes. Well, it's it's going to require

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Speaker 1: more study. And if you're interested in studying this for yourself,

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Speaker 1: you know what we suggestion as you start with does

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Speaker 1: contagious yawning mean you're nice? That's available on how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. We're all gonna go take maps. For

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Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.

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Speaker 1: Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.

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