Contagious Yawning in African Elephants (Loxodonta africana): Responses to Other Elephants and Familiar Humans

Rossman, Zoë T.; Padfield, Clare; Young, Debbie; Hart, Benjamin L.; Hart, Lynette A.

doi:10.3389/fvets.2020.00252

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Contagious yawning is well-documented in both naturalistic and experimental studies on humans [ 5 , 24 , 57 , 65 , 77 ], and emerges during early childhood development [ 78 ]. While previous comparative research has provided evidence for interspecific, i.e., human-initiated, contagious yawning in chimpanzees [ 45 , 46 ], red-capped mangabeys [ 47 ], domesticated dogs [ 48 , 50 , 51 , 53 ], and African elephants [ 54 ], to date, there have been no studies examining whether humans yawn contagiously in response to non-human animals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…African elephants have also been shown to yawn contagiously in response to yawns from humans [ 54 ]. In particular, this study found that three out of seven captive elephants yawned following live yawns from familiar human handlers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, this study found that three out of seven captive elephants yawned following live yawns from familiar human handlers. Again, the authors propose that this behavior reflects a form of empathic processing [ 54 ]. It is important to note, however, that the connection between contagious yawning and empathy is far from clear [ 55 ], and attention towards the yawning stimuli—in this case the familiar human model(s)—could be driving this response [ 56 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interspecific Contagious Yawning in Humans

Gallup

Wozny

2022

Animals

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Contagious yawning, or the reflexive tendency to yawn following the detection of yawning in others, is well-documented among humans and a growing number of social vertebrates. While the most common form of yawn contagion occurs between conspecifics, some non-human animals in captivity have been reported to yawn in response to yawns from human handlers/caregivers. The current research sought to provide the first formal investigation of whether people yawn contagiously in response to yawns from non-human animals. In addition, this study aimed to test whether this response was modulated by phylogenetic relatedness and domestication/social closeness. A total of 296 participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk self-reported on their yawning behavior following exposure to a (1) control (non-yawning) condition or a compilation of yawning stimuli either from (2) fish, (3) amphibians, (4) reptiles, (5) birds, (6) non-primate mammals, (7) apes, or (8) domesticated cats and dogs. The results provide strong support for interspecific yawn contagion. However, neither the propensity to yawn (binary) nor total yawn frequency varied significantly across interspecific conditions. Overall, these findings suggest that the mechanisms governing yawn contagion can be activated by varied forms of yawning stimuli, including those from distantly related and unfamiliar species.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interspecific Contagious Yawning in Humans

Gallup

Wozny

2022

Animals

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“…Yawn contagion has been further reported within observational studies of gelada baboons [ 27 ], captive wolves [ 28 ], domesticated pigs [ 29 ], and African lions [ 3 ]. Limited evidence for contagious yawning has also been documented in African elephants [ 30 ], southern elephant seals [ 31 ], and domesticated sheep [ 32 ]. Some other mammalian species that have been studied for yawn contagion, but have revealed no evidence for this effect, include common marmosets, ring-tailed and ruffed lemurs, as well as lowland gorillas [ 33 , 34 , 35 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

No Evidence for Contagious Yawning in Juvenile Ravens (Corvus corax): An Observational Study

Gallup

Schild

Ühlein

et al. 2022

Animals

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The overt and reflexive matching of behaviors among conspecifics has been observed in a growing number of social vertebrates, including avian species. In general, behavioral contagion—such as the spread of yawning—may serve important functions in group synchronization and vigilance behavior. Here, we performed an exploratory study to investigate yawn contagion among 10 captive juvenile ravens (Corvus corax), across two groups. Using observational methods, we also examined the contagiousness of three other distinct behaviors: stretching, scratching, and shaking. A total of 44 20 min observations were made across both groups, including 28 in the morning and 16 in the afternoon. The time and occurrence of all the behaviors from each bird were coded, and the temporal pattern of each behavior across both groups was then analyzed to assess the degree of social contagion. Overall, we found no evidence for contagious yawning, stretching, scratching, or shaking. However, yawns were relatively infrequent per observation (0.052 ± 0.076 yawns/bird) and thus experimental methods should be used to support this finding.

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“…For example, within the hominid family, yawn contagion has been shown in chimpanzees (Campbell & Cox, 2019; Campbell & de Waal, 2011), bonobos (Palagi et al., 2014) and humans (Provine, 2005) but not in gorillas (Palagi et al., 2019), thus suggesting that phylogenetic closeness cannot necessarily predict, per se, yawn contagion (Palagi et al., 2020). Outside the primate order, evidence of contagious yawning are reported for dogs and wolves (Neilands et al., 2020; Romero et al., 2013, 2014; Silva et al., 2012), Asian and African elephants (Rossman et al., 2017; Rossman et al., 2020), sheep (Yonezawa et al., 2017), elephant seals (Wojczulanis‐Jakubas et al., 2019) and parrots (Gallup et al., 2015; Miller et al., 2012). The occurrence of yawn contagion may be linked to the level of attention and responsiveness to conspecifics' stimuli.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Earlier than previously thought: Yawn contagion in preschool children

Cordoni

Favilli

Palagi

2021

Developmental Psychobiology

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Imagine a yawn. You stretch your jaws open in a wide gape, take a deep inward breath, followed by a shorter exhalation, and end by closing your jaws…You have just joined vertebrates everywhere in one of the animal kingdom's most ancient rites" (Provine, 2005 p. 532).Yawning is a primitive and complex stereotyped motor response that requires the involvement of facial, oral, laryngeal, pharyngeal, thoracic and abdominal muscles (Provine, 2005). Among vertebrates, spontaneous yawning is a ubiquitous and evolutionarily conserved behaviour (Provine, 2005;Walusinski & Deputte, 2004). This activity seems to serve important neurophysiological functions such as brain cooling and enhancement of blood flow to the skull, which, in turn, could stimulate cortical arousal and state change (for an extensive review see Massen & Gallup, 2017).Spontaneous yawning is driven by physiological stimuli, it is widespread throughout the animal kingdom and it follows a daily fluctuation (Giganti & Zilli, 2011;Massen & Gallup, 2017). On the other hand, contagious yawning, an involuntarily action induced by viewing or listening to others' yawns (Provine, 2005), is socially driven and must follow a different 'pathway' compared to spontaneous yawning.Indeed, contagious yawning shows some differences in daily fluctuation (Giganti & Zilli, 2011) and it is not widespread across

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Contagious Yawning in African Elephants (Loxodonta africana): Responses to Other Elephants and Familiar Humans

Cited by 12 publications

References 22 publications

Interspecific Contagious Yawning in Humans

Interspecific Contagious Yawning in Humans

No Evidence for Contagious Yawning in Juvenile Ravens (Corvus corax): An Observational Study

Earlier than previously thought: Yawn contagion in preschool children

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