Why is a yawn catching?

Question

So did you yawn when you read this question lol

Answer 1

It is possible that yawns are contagious because at one time in evolutionary history, the yawn served to coordinate the social behavior of a group of animals. When one member of the group yawned to signal an event, all the other members of the group also yawned. Yawns may still be contagious these days because of a leftover response (a "vestigial" response) that is not used anymore. None of this has been proven true and yawns are still one of the mysteries of the mind.

Answer 2

There is a place in the roof of your mouth that is a temperature receptor and the act of yawning draws in cooler air, which in some ways stimulates the brain to become more alert.

There a also theories that it is contagious, because in our ancestor lives, we would have to stay alert in order to flee from predators - and this action would help the whole group/family stay alert.

There are also theories mentioned before that this action is a way of ancestral communication between us - however yawning is also contagious between other animals as well as humans so this theory may not be the easiest to explain.

And yes I did yawn a few times whilst answering this question!

Answer 3

the mythbusters made an episode about this in season 3 episode 28, and this is what they found out:

n a test pool of 50 people those who were influenced into yawning by the MythBusters yawned 29% of the time. However, those who were not influenced yawned only 25% of the time. It seems that the Mythbusters also found the average time to yawn for those who did yawn was 9 minutes for those who had been influenced and 9.6 minutes for those who had not, but the only token of this information is a written note in their calculation results and there was no verbal discussion regarding it during the show. Despite this supportive evidence, the 4% difference between the experimental and control groups was not large enough to constitute a statistically significant difference (at alpha = 0.05), and therefore no definitive conclusion could be reached based on these results. (Even so the myth was Confirmed, however).

I dont understand why they confirmed this myth. it seems that the results were inconclusive.

Answer 4

because when you see a person yawn your brain reacts by yawning back becuase it is gasping from oxygen as it thinks there is a lack of oxygen  but as you brain reacts other people follow

Answer 5

:o

Answer 6

even thinking about yawning makes me want to yawn. no body really knows a definite answer. chimps do it too.

Answer 7

i dont know why but I did yawn hahahaha