Chimpanzees yawn when observing an android yawn | Hacker News Reader

Chimpanzees yawn when observing an android yawn

nature.com

50 pointsPaulHoule45 comments

Why are yawns contagious in the first place? (i.e. human to human)

Not an answer but an expansion on the question: yawns are contagious among mammals. If you watch your cat yawn you're more likely to yawn and vice versa.

Not only mammals (hence, this post).

Read about it, mammals will yawn when other non-mammals yawn.

Well, the android is roughly mimicking a mammal. But more to that point, I've seen snakes yawn, and I then yawned. Reptiles generally seem to yawn and I'd bet they yawn when they see mammals yawn too.

> I've seen snakes yawn

if a see a snake (yawning or otherwise) i'll definitely not yawn.

puking, screaming or running would be more likely.

Aww, snakes are cute though. You should think about spending some time around some docile snakes to challenge your aversion. Even through a glass tank wall, so you can feel rationally safe.

Mythbusters did an episode on this https://www.discovery.com/shows/mythbusters/episodes/is-yawn...

IIRC, it wasn't that contagious.

> IIRC, it wasn't that contagious.

Or, restated, they confirmed it was contagious.

No. Plausible, but statistically insignificant for a definitive conclusion. https://mythresults.com/episode28

I always heard it was synchronization of sleep cycles.

This presentation from BAHFest has always stuck with me as the "real" explanation: https://youtu.be/yh0XUZjRhO8?si=q9WNbCkEeMC-fuPp

This was glorious.

I remember yawn as a result of lack of oxygen and need for a deep breath. Maybe it was some reaction among animals where they breath even if not feeling lack of oxygen.

Guess: one of the emergent properties of LLM-like systems is mimicry.

I would say "mirror neurons".

Also, primates are naturally selected to act mutually. Whoever didn't do so lost the tribe and died.

That's just high me thinking though.

I don’t think they’re contagious. When everybody is bored and tired in the same room, they yawn.

Occam’s razor.

It even is contagious through text. I read your comment and then literally yawned.

Many different proposed causes listed in the wikipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yawn

Not mentioned in the Wikipedia article, but in a referenced article [2]: "Another puzzling phenomenon is that some male animals, men included, yawn in association with penile erection"

[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna3076713

Also a brief survey in the linked Scientific Reports article.

I was just reading the headline and started yawning.

I yawned because I read this comment.

I read that sociopaths are immune from this

And what if they observe an iOS yawn?

They get locked into a caged ecosystem

They become liquid and transparent

Those images of that android in the PDF is the stuff that nightmares are made off

I thought it looked unnervingly realistic. That is, if you ignore the weird mouth curvature.

I yawned after reading the title and imagining a chimp yawn at a robot.

Used to play a game when we were kids where one of us would start faking a yawn - stretching, contorting our mouths between words, breathing in as if trying to fight a yawn, trying to make the other person yawn before they realise.

My cat yawns after watching me yawn, I assumed this was a universal thing.

I yawned from reading the title, so Im not surprised.

Monkey see, monkey do?

And like a damn chimp I just yawned after reading this headline.

Sounds like we need to test if people yawn after imagining someone else yawning

I can confirm. Sample of one, mind.

Of course we do. What I wonder is if there is any (inverse) correlation with aphantasia.

Science is notoriously late to discover what pet owners have known for centuries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joROEZQz178

Which one is the « catoid » there?

I did the same after imagining it. Plus I have a half eaten banana in front of me. My life is an illusion!

I came here to say the same damn thing.

Me too. I was already sleepy, so on the verge of yawning already though. Coincidence or did the headline trigger it?

I'm not sure why 'Android' got auto-capitalized, but it's about a robot simulating yawning, not a phone.

I've fixed it. Our auto-capitalizing bot didn't know the word could also be an improper noun.

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