Owners' yawns are 'contagious' to dogs

Date: Aug-08-2013Man's best friend has proven just how loyal he is, as a recent study published in PLOS ONE reveals that the contagious yawns dogs get from their owners are a result of empathy rather than stress, the mechanism researchers previously suspected.

We have all been there: four o'clock on a Thursday afternoon, your co-worker yawns and then it spreads around the office. Researchers from the study, which was conducted at the University of Tokyo, note that this type of contagious yawning happens in 45-60% of healthy adults.

Associated with activations of neural networks related to empathy and social skills, the researchers note that contagious yawning plays a potential role in communication, social interactions and empathy. In short, it has to do with social attachment between individuals.

Teresa Romero, one of the lead researchers, and her colleagues found that though dogs tend to yawn when they see another person yawning, they respond more to the yawns of their owners than those of a stranger.

Additionally, they observed that dogs responded less to fake yawns, showing that they have the capacity, like humans, to yawn as a result of other people's yawns.

Empathetic vs. distress-related yawns

According to the researchers, the reason they decided to carry out the study is that they wanted to see if contagious yawning in dogs was a result of empathy or distress.

They write:

"The evidence supporting the link between contagious yawning and empathy is not specific to humans. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos (Pan paniscus) and gelada baboons (Theropithecus gelada) have been reported to yawn contagiously when they observe a conspecific yawning."

The study points to previous studies focusing on contagious yawning in dogs, which show mixed results. Though some studies have suggested that dogs' yawns with humans are an empathetic response, others have surmised that it is a mild distress response.

In this recent study, 25 dogs observed both their owners and strangers, who acted out a yawn and performed control mouth movements similar to a yawn.

Dogs yawned along with their owners more frequently than with strangers.

The researchers noted that the dogs yawned more frequently when they watched their owners yawn, "demonstrating that the contagiousness of yawning in dogs correlated with the level of emotional proximity."

In order to rule out the hypothesis that dogs' yawns are stress-related, the researchers monitored the heart rates of the dogs during the experiment. Because the heart rates did not differ in any of the conditions, the researchers conclude that "the phenomenon of contagious yawning in dogs is unrelated to stressful events."

Evolutionary implications for yawning

Romero notes that though the study is unable to identify the underlying mechanism in dogs that makes contagious yawning possible, it does show that yawning in dogs is emotionally connected in a way similar to humans.

The study concludes by focusing on wider implications:

"If contagious yawning indeed is related to the capacity for empathy, it could become a powerful tool to explore the root of empathy in animal evolution by studying cross-species contagious yawning. Therefore, there is a need for further experimentation on this issue, especially in non-primate species."

Since the dogs yawned more often with their owners rather than strangers, the researchers note that the finding is "consistent with the observation that empathy is more pronounced the stronger the social attachment between individuals."

So give old Fido a bone today. He deserves it for being so empathetic.

Written by Marie Ellis

Copyright: Medical News Today

Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today
Courtesy: Medical News Today Note: Any medical information available in this news section is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional.