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
-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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