Why yawning is ‘contagious’

We already know that yawning is ‘contagious’, we have seen it, but the Japanese scientists know why this is true.

Scientists from Japan have done research on chimpanzees. When a 27 year old monkey yawned, immediately all other monkeys that stood next to him started to yawn.

The study showed that the three young chimps who saw their mother yawn, reacted just like her. But interesting is that none of the monkeys yawned they saw videos of others monkeys that just open their mouth, but not yawning.

Scientists say that the behavior of chimpanzees is similar to the human behavior.

When people see how someone around them yawns they act the same. Another interesting fact is that in children under five years, this does not affect. The conclusion which the scientists made is that the ‘contagious’  yawning is a consequence of the sympathy that people (and monkeys) feel for one another and this requires an advanced intellect.