Jesup psychological
laboratory, George Peabody college, Nashville,
Tenessee, USA
Yawning is one of the first reflexes
to be observed in the newborn infant. A number
of investigators (1, 2, 4, 6) report having seen
this form of behavior "at birth". Blanton ( 1 ),
with an eye to temporal significance, reports
that she observed yawning in one infant five
minutes after birth. It can be assumed that
numerous observers have ascertained that yawning
is a reflex capable of being initiated "at
birth" or soon thereafter.
The stimulus or the stimuli that initiate
the yawning reflex are at the present time very
obscure. Warren's dictionary (9) states that
yawning "is a reflex, usually induced by bodily
fatigue. . . ." The writer has not been able to
locate a single study which supports the fatigue
basis of yawning. The table in the back of
Warren's dictionary entitled "Human Reflexes
Frequently Treated in Psychological Literature"
(pp. 311-314) giving the stimulus, the pathway,
and the response fails to include the word
yawning or any of the acceptable synonyms such
as pandiculation,
chasma, gaping, and oscitation.
Pathological research shows that yawning
accompanies certain types of diseases. It seems
to be symptomatic of epidemic
encephalitis (7) and of some gastric
diseases (5). Hence, the yawning reflex may be
of significance to the diagnostician.
Yawning in animals does not appear to have
been studied under rigidly controlled conditions
up to the present time. The following statement
appears in Charles
Darwin's book (3) The Expression of the
Emotions in Man and Animals: «Baboons
often show their passion and threaten their
enemies in a very odd rnanner, namely, by
opening their mouths widely as in the act of
yawning. Mr. Bartlett has often seen two
baboons, when first placed in the same
compartment, sitting opposite to each other thus
alternately opening their mouths; and this
action seems frequently to end in a real
yawn» (p. 136).
The writer has observed a dog conditioned to
"yawn" attempt the act several times until his
efforts appeared to end in a genuine yawn. In
undertaking the present study the investigator
hopes to stimulaite research on this socially
significant reflex. The present study should be
viewed as being exploratory in nature.
The object of this investigation was to
determine if the yawning reflex might be invoked
by auditory as well as visual means. Three basic
procedures were used in the investigation, each
of which will be discussed separately.
Procedure N°1
This part of the experiment might be called
the visual stimulation of the yawning reflex.
Trained yawners and observers worked together.
By trained "yawners" is meant the group in
question practiced its yawning, or rather its
imitation yawns, until the members could
reproduce a realistic looking yawn. The
stimulator would go into public gatherings and
seat himself one row in front of the observer
and start his imitation yawning at intervals of
10 minutes; until he had yawned five times. This
type of investigation was carried out in three
college assembly programs, three Sunday mornings
and four evening church services, and three
library situations. Four different denominations
were used for fear we might get a particular
minister whose sermon would produce an
unusually, large number of yawns. Whether this
variable was controlled satisfactorily is not
known.
The stimulators, that is those who pretended
to yawn, were all graduate students, four men
and one woman.
The results for the college assembly group:
To 55 imitation yawns the observers counted 21
apparently real yawns, not counting repetitions
of yawns by any subject.
In studying the yawning of church goers the
writer makes no claim of originality whatsoever.
Church members as early as 1755 were interested
in how much or how little a brother or sister
yawned as can be seen from the following
statement taken from the OxfordEnglish
Dictionary (8) : «Strype-Stow's
Survey II-Near to this is a large handsome
monument, erected to the mernory of James Cooper
of this Parish. Gentleman reinarkahle for his
loud yawning during the time of divine
service.»
The morning church groups responded with 10
real yawns to 15 simulated yawns. The evening
church services failed to produce the marked
results one might have anticipated, in the light
of the fatigue theory of yawningbecause 20
simulated yawns only brought forth 11 real
responses. This part of the study did not rule
out the possibility of cross stimulation or the
difference in the "potency" of the imitation
yawns given by the various stimulators.
In the library, 24 simulated yawns brought
forth 11 real yawns. This phase of the study was
difficult to evaluate because so many of the
subjects were reading and hence falled to see
the yawn produced by the stimulator.
Pocedure N°2
In this part of the investigation auditory
stimuli were used. Four imitation yawns produced
by the experimenter were recorded on a
phonograph record. An electric phonograph was
used so as to get a constant speed. The subjects
were taken individually and asked to sit in an
office chair which would permit them to lean
back, but the chair was not sufficiently high to
permit the head to rest comfortably. No mention
of yawning was made by the investigator before
playing the record. The following instructions
were recorded on the phonograph record: "Get
into a comfortable position and relax so that
you can listen without undue strain; in a moment
you are joing to hear a person yawn, listen
attentively but do not let yourself become
tense-ready?" The subject was seated so that he
faced a wall. A side view of the subject's
facial features provided imeans of checking on
any marked tendency to yawn.
Two groups of subjects were used. One of
these was a college group made up largely of
graduate nurses, and the other was a group of
eighth grade pupils in the school for the
blind.
The college students were divided into two
groups. Nine women subjects were tested in the
morning and 10 women in the afternoon group. In
the group tested in the morning none yawned
directly as a result of playing the record. Six
of the nine said they "felt like they wanted to
yawn". Four subjects reported a "funny"
sensation in the jaws and throat. Two students
yawned twice before the questions could be
completed. Two subjects reported that the record
did not sourid like a yawn at all, and one went
so far as to that the record sounded more like a
wild aniimal roaring than a yawn. The group of
10 subjects, tested in the afternoon, failed to
produce a single yawn in direct response to the
playing of the record. One subject did yawn
after the record stopped. Seven reported that
they felt like yawing and three reported a
"funny" sensation in their jaws.
The blind group was composed of 14 sublects,
10 boys and 4 girls, and was tested as a group
by means of the phonograph record. The
experiment was conducted at 8:45 the second
period of the day. Only one subject had vision
better than light perception, and he only had
20/40 vision in one eye. Six of the 14 subjects
yawned during the playing of the record. One
subject who did not yawn during the playing of
the record yawned during the questioning of the
class. The pupils' respones to the series of
questions were written on their Braille Slates
immediately after the record ceased playing and
before any discussion took place.
Eight of the pupils reported that they felt
like they wanted to yawn in response to the
record. It may be that the yawns emitted by the
blind subjects were loud enough to be heard by
those near them. No information was obtained as
to the number of hours slept by each subject the
night before the experiment.
Procedure N°3
The materials for this part of the study
consisted of a motion picture film taken of a
girl pretending to yawn. The film was taken at
slow average and fast speeds, The girl who sat
for the pictures reported that she actually
yawned twice in a natural manner during the
filming. We were not able to differentiate
between the actual and simulated yawn when using
a microfilm projector for enlarging the 16 mm
pictures. The fact that we could not check the
difference between a real and a simulated yawn
may be a serious weakness in this part of our
study and should be checked in future
research.
Mention should be made of the fact that in
some of the imitation yawns arm movements were
brought into use and this may have enhanced the
stimulating value of that particular set of
pictures.
The film was shown to a class of 36
students, 35 women and one man, in general
psychology about half of whom were graduate
nurses. The room was fairly dark but it is quite
possible that a person could see the individual
next to him or her clearly enough to be
stimulated. Immediately after showing the film
the students were asked to write the answers to
the following questions: (a) Did you yawn ? (b)
Did vou feel like you wanted to yawn ? (c) Did
you get any particular sensation or "funny
feeling" in your chest, throat or jaws? (d) Did
you feel tired or relaxed or both as a result of
the film ?
The results from showing the film to the
general psychology students were as follows: (a)
Twelve students, or one-third, reported that
they had yawned during the showing of the film.
Six of these yawned while watching the first
part and six while watching the last part of the
film. (b) Thirteen reported that, even though
they did not yawn, they "felt like" they wanted
to do so. Five indicated that this desire came
during the first part and eight during the last
part of the film. (c) Eleven students reported
that they neither yawned nor felt like they
wanted to yawn, but all reported that they
either felt relaxed or tired or both
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
It should be borne in mind that the controls
in this study were admittedly not all they
should have been. With due allowance for
variation in controls for the different parts of
this study the following conclusions appear to
be reasonable:
1. The yawning reflex appears to have
received little attention from American
psychologists except in the observation of its
appearance in the newborn infant.
2. In this investigation trained yawners
apparently stimulated college students in
assemblies and libraries to yawn as well as
church goers in both the morning and evening
services.
3. The phonograph record stimulated some of
the blind subjects but few of the graduate
nurses to yawn.
4. Motion pictures of a girl yawning seemed
to initiate the yawning reflex in several
students taking general psychology.
References
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BUHLER, C. The First Year of Life. New York:
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DARWIN
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GESELL, A. The Mental Development of the
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In: Kusonose, Ryo and Sato, Shusuke 39th
Congress of the International Society for
Applied Ethology, Kanagawa, Japan. 20-24 August,
2005
