Contagious yawning in chimpanzees
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Six adult female chimpanzees were shown video scenes of chimpanzees repeatedly yawning or of chimpanzees showing open-mouth facial expressions that were not yawns. Two out of the six females showed significantly higher frequencies of yawning in response to yawn videos; no chimpanzees showed the inverse. Three infant chimpanzees that accompanied their mothers did not yawn at all. These data are highly reminiscent of the contagious yawning effects reported for humans. Contagious yawning is thought to be based on the capacity for empathy. Contagious yawning in chimpanzees provides further evidence that these apes may possess advanced self-awareness and empathic abilities.
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Great apes start yawning when they see conspecifics yawn.
“Other evidence, for example, comes from studies in great apes whereby the apes start yawning when they see conspecifics yawn (Anderson et al., 2004).”
From Connecting minds and sharing emotions through mimicry: A neurocognitive model of emotional contagion (2017) · cites this paper as Anderson et al., 2004
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“Other evidence, for example, comes from studies in great apes whereby the apes start yawning when they see conspecifics yawn (Anderson et al., 2004).”
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- Authors
- Anderson, J. R., Myowa–Yamakoshi, M., & Matsuzawa, T.
- Affiliations
- University of Stirling (GB)
- The University of Shiga Prefecture, School of Human Cultures, Hikone, Shiga 522–8533, Japan
- Kyoto University (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Anderson, James R.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2004-12-07
- Volume
- 271
- Issue
- suppl_6
- Pages
- S468-70
- ISSN
- 0080-4649 (ISSN-L)
- 0962-8452
- 1471-2954
- PMC
- PMC1810104
- OpenAlex
- W2131048802
- Cited by
- 217
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 13
- FWCI
- 7.87
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (#12002009, 07102010)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- contagious yawning, chimpanzees, empathy, social cognition, infant development, facial expressions, apes
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Pan troglodytes, Female, Imitative Behavior, Videotape Recording, Yawning, Observation
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