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31 mai 2009
Anim Cogn.
2009;12(6):833-837
Do dogs (Canis familiaris) show contagious yawning?
Aimee L. Harr, Valerie R Gilbert, Kimberley A Philipps
Department of Psychology, Hiram College, USA

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We report an experimental investigation into whether domesticated dogs display contagious yawning. Fifteen dogs were shown video clips of (1) humans and (2) dogs displaying yawns and open-mouth expressions (not yawns) to investigate whether dogs showed contagious yawning to either of these social stimuli. Only one dog performed signiWcantly more yawns during or shortly after viewing yawning videos than to the open-mouth videos, and most of these yawns occurred to the human videos. No dogs showed signiWcantly more yawning to the open-mouth videos (human or dog). The percentage of dogs showing contagious yawning was less than chimpanzees and humans showing this behavior, and considerably less than a recently published report investigating this behavior in dogs.
 
-Harr AL, Gilbert VR Do dogs show contagious yawning ? Anim Cogn. 2009;12(6):833-837
-Joly-Mascheroni RM, Senju A, Sheperd AJ Dogs catch human yawns Biology letters Animal Behaviour 2008;4(5):446-448
-Lindsay SR Coping with fear and stress: licking and yawning. Handbook of applied dog behavior and training 2000 
-Madsen EA, Persson T. Contagious yawning in domestic dog puppies (Canis lupus familiaris): the effect of ontogeny and emotional closeness on low-level imitation in dogs. Anim Cogn. 2012
-O'Hara SJ, Reeve AV A test of the yawning contagion and emotional connectedness hypothesis in dogs, Canis familiaris. Animal Behaviour 2011;81:335-340
-Perkins JR Teaching Dogs to Yawn, Sneeze, and Implications for Preparedness Theory and Observational Learning. In: Kusonose, Ryo and Sato, Shusuke 39th Congress of the International Society for Applied Ethology, Kanagawa, Japan. 20-24 August, 2005
-Silva K, Bessa J, de Sousa L. Auditory contagious yawning in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris): first evidence for social modulation. Anim Cogn. 2012.
 
 
Introduction
Viewing another individual yawn, reading about yawning, or even thinking about yawning can trigger contagious yawning in 40-60% of adult humans. Investigations have shown that contagious yawning is not a phenomenon unique to humans, as chimpanzees and possibly stumptail macaques demonstrate contagious yawning, albeit to a lesser degree. Current hypotheses attempting to explain contagious yawning have focused on its potential role in communication, social interaction, and empathy.
 
While some consider contagious yawning to be an innate releasing mechanism, others suggest that it has an empathetic basis and may be related to self-awareness. Support for this latter position comes from studies in humans correlating contagious yawning and scores on a test of empathy and self-recognition. Additionally, children with autism spectrum disorder show an impairment in contagious yawning. However, recent neuroimaging studies of contagious yawning have shown inconsistent results.
 
Platek et al. (2005) noted activation in the posterior cingulate and precuneus, neural regions associated with self-processing (theory of mind and empathy). In contrast, Schürmann et al. (2005) reported activation in the superior temporal sulcus and not in the core regions of the human mirror-neuron system. The mirror-neuron system is believed to be an integral component of the neuronal framework for insight into other minds and empathy.
 
Dogs are excellent species to address questions relating to social cognition. During domestication they were selected for social intelligence for their roles in human society. Thus, dogs are predisposed to respond to the social cues of both humans and other dogs. Dogs might display a behavioral social contagion in response to viewing either a dog or human yawn. A recent report investigating contagious yawning in dogs concluded that 72% of the dogs tested exhibited yawns in response to a human yawning.
 
Joly- Mascheroni et al. (2008) suggested that the heightened arousal that accompanies yawning may play a role in coordinating interactions and communication between dogs and humans. The present experiment further explored whether pet dogs would show contagious yawning. In particular, we tested whether dogs would show contagious yawning to both human and dog stimuli. Since dogs clearly respond to human and dog social signals, we hypothesized that dogs would display contagious yawning when presented with a stimulus of either an unfamiliar dog yawning or an unfamiliar human yawning.
 
Discussion
Higher frequencies of yawning in response to yawn stimuli (human or dog model) in comparison to open-mouth stimuli (human or dog model) were observed in one (6%) of the dogs tested. It should be acknowledged that this Wnding could be a chance occurrence. This percentage of dogs showing contagious yawning is quite less than the 33% of chimpanzees and 40-60% of humans (Provine 1986; Platek et al. 2003) that show a contagion effect of yawning, and is considerably less than the 72% of dogs reported to show a contagion eVect in a recent study. Interestingly, the subject who demonstrated the contagion effect in this study performed more yawns in response to viewing a human yawning than conspecifics' yawns. This may reflect that dogs respond to the attentional state of humans, as dogs use human signals such as gaze direction and distal pointing for informational purposes. Dogs spend considerable time in human social experiences and are likely to be quite experienced with observing human facial gestures. Although an experimental investigation into whether stumptail macaques display contagious yawning did yield positive results, the authors questioned whether the eVect was due to tension or anxiety, as the yawns by the subjects were accompanied by self-directed scratching, a common indicator of tension in this species
 
In the present study, we were careful not to record yawns displayed as a function of tension. We were attentive to whether a dog displayed any signs typically associated with anxiety; none of the subjects displayed such tension yawns. The experiment reported here should be viewed as an initial investigation into the complex question of the degree to which pet dogs might show rudimentary elements of empathy.
 
Our results indicate that in at least one dog, there was a clear increase in yawning after viewing an unfamiliar human or dog yawn. The percentage of dogs showing contagious yawning in this study is strikingly lower than the results reported by Joly-Mascheroni et al. (2008). Methodological differences likely explain the conflicting results between these two studies. While Joly- Mascheroni et al. (2008) used live human models, the present study used video clips of humans and dogs.
 
Although the use of video stimuli could be considered advantageous as it standardized the procedure across all subjects and limited channels of communication transfer, it is possible that subjects attended differently to the video rather than a live model. Differential reactivity of the human mirror-neuron system occurs when a subject observes a live or video motor act, with stronger reactivity seen when viewing a live motor act. Research using video or LCD screens to present stimuli to dogs are limited, but successful studies have been conducted. One study indicated that dogs successfully attended to human gestures on vide.
 
To address this issue, experimental investigation testing the same subjects on both live and video models should be conducted. Unfortunately it was not possible to retest the current subjects with live human models. An additional reason that more dogs did not display a contagion eVect may be that the models (both human and dog) used in this investigation were unfamiliar to the subjects. This may have decreased the likelihood of an effect, particularly in response to the stimuli of the human model. It is not unreasonable then to predict that the use of the dog's owner or other familiar human in the video stimuli might have produced different results. There is a need for further experimentation on this issue, and unraveling whether such behavior in dogs reflects a rudimentary empathetic capacity will be an exciting area for future studies.
 
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