Used to play a game when we were kids where one of us would start faking a yawn - stretching, contorting our mouths between words, breathing in as if trying to fight a yawn, trying to make the other person yawn before they realise.
Not an answer but an expansion on the question: yawns are contagious among mammals. If you watch your cat yawn you're more likely to yawn and vice versa.
Well, the android is roughly mimicking a mammal. But more to that point, I've seen snakes yawn, and I then yawned. Reptiles generally seem to yawn and I'd bet they yawn when they see mammals yawn too.
I remember yawn as a result of lack of oxygen and need for a deep breath. Maybe it was some reaction among animals where they breath even if not feeling lack of oxygen.
Not mentioned in the Wikipedia article, but in a referenced article [2]:
"Another puzzling phenomenon is that some male animals, men included, yawn in association with penile erection"
Used to play a game when we were kids where one of us would start faking a yawn - stretching, contorting our mouths between words, breathing in as if trying to fight a yawn, trying to make the other person yawn before they realise.
I yawned after reading the title and imagining a chimp yawn at a robot.
Why are yawns contagious in the first place? (i.e. human to human)
Not an answer but an expansion on the question: yawns are contagious among mammals. If you watch your cat yawn you're more likely to yawn and vice versa.
Not only mammals (hence, this post).
Read about it, mammals will yawn when other non-mammals yawn.
Well, the android is roughly mimicking a mammal. But more to that point, I've seen snakes yawn, and I then yawned. Reptiles generally seem to yawn and I'd bet they yawn when they see mammals yawn too.
> I've seen snakes yawn
if a see a snake (yawning or otherwise) i'll definitely not yawn.
puking, screaming or running would be more likely.
This presentation from BAHFest has always stuck with me as the "real" explanation: https://youtu.be/yh0XUZjRhO8?si=q9WNbCkEeMC-fuPp
This was glorious.
Mythbusters did an episode on this https://www.discovery.com/shows/mythbusters/episodes/is-yawn...
IIRC, it wasn't that contagious.
> IIRC, it wasn't that contagious.
Or, restated, they confirmed it was contagious.
I remember yawn as a result of lack of oxygen and need for a deep breath. Maybe it was some reaction among animals where they breath even if not feeling lack of oxygen.
I always heard it was synchronization of sleep cycles.
I would say "mirror neurons".
Also, primates are naturally selected to act mutually. Whoever didn't do so lost the tribe and died.
That's just high me thinking though.
I was just reading the headline and started yawning.
It even is contagious through text. I read your comment and then literally yawned.
I don’t think they’re contagious. When everybody is bored and tired in the same room, they yawn.
Occam’s razor.
Guess: one of the emergent properties of LLM-like systems is mimicry.
Many different proposed causes listed in the wikipedia article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yawn
Not mentioned in the Wikipedia article, but in a referenced article [2]: "Another puzzling phenomenon is that some male animals, men included, yawn in association with penile erection"
[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna3076713
Also a brief survey in the linked Scientific Reports article.
I read that sociopaths are immune from this
And what if they observe an iOS yawn?
They get locked into a caged ecosystem
They become liquid and transparent
Those images of that android in the PDF is the stuff that nightmares are made off
I thought it looked unnervingly realistic. That is, if you ignore the weird mouth curvature.
I yawned from reading the title, so Im not surprised.
Monkey see, monkey do?
And like a damn chimp I just yawned after reading this headline.
I did the same after imagining it. Plus I have a half eaten banana in front of me. My life is an illusion!
Science is notoriously late to discover what pet owners have known for centuries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joROEZQz178
Which one is the « catoid » there?
Sounds like we need to test if people yawn after imagining someone else yawning
Of course we do. What I wonder is if there is any (inverse) correlation with aphantasia.
I can confirm. Sample of one, mind.
I came here to say the same damn thing.
Me too. I was already sleepy, so on the verge of yawning already though. Coincidence or did the headline trigger it?
I'm not sure why 'Android' got auto-capitalized, but it's about a robot simulating yawning, not a phone.
I've fixed it. Our auto-capitalizing bot didn't know the word could also be an improper noun.