Summary: Human Yawning Makes Dogs Yawn Too! Episode 51 - by Mary Bates (Click here to directly access the MP3) (Access the full text transcript) Our dogs happily catch whatever toy we throw for them — but did you know they can also catch our yawns? Dogs are just as susceptible as people to the mysterious phenomenon of contagious yawning. New research suggests the reason could be related to the special relationship dogs have with their owners. Empathy, not sleepiness, could explain contagious yawning by dogs in response to humans. Yawning, it seems, truly is gone to the dogs. Listen to the Podcast to learn more! Further Reading: Goldman, J. (2012). Contagious Yawning: Evidence of Empathy? The Thoughtful Animal. Joly-Mascheroni, R. M., Senju, A., and Shepherd, A. J. (2008). Dogs catch human yawns. Biology Letters 4(5): 446-448. Madsen, E. A. and Persson, T. (2013). Contagious yawning in domestic dog puppies (Canis familiaris): the effect of ontogeny and emotional closeness on low-level imitation in dogs. Animal Cognition 16(2): 233-240. Romero T., Konno A., and Hasegawa T. (2013). Familiarity bias and physiological responses in contagious yawning by dogs support link to empathy. PLOS ONE 8(8): e71365. Mary Bates is a freelance science writer living in Boston. She has a Ph.D. in psychology from Brown University where she studied bat echolocation. You can visit her website at www.marybateswriter.com and follow her on Twitter at @mebwriter.
