Is There A Purpose to Yawning?

Yawning is contagious.  No doubt about it.  We've all experienced it.  I even yawned back and forth with my dog until I decided to leave the room to make it stop.  I am actually yawning just writing about yawning.  It is insane!

Well, great apes are not immune to this debilitating habit that seems to spring out of nowhere for no apparent reason.  We yawn when we are tired, bored, anxious and ... when others yawn.
Now, thanks to a study coming out of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University we have proof that chimpanzees do too.  When shown animated cartoon chimpanzee characters yawning, the real chimps yawned in response.

Some suggest that yawning may have served a purpose, like signaling all individuals within a group that it was time to sleep.  This is certainly one way of looking at it.

Others, like Professor Robert Provine at the University of Maryland who spent years studying phenomena like yawning, think our response to others' yawning has everything to do with how we relate to one another.  (Check out why we yawn for more info).

This is exactly the reason for the study conducted at Yerkes.  The goal is to give us more insight on empathy.  Yawning when others do may prove that we are in touch with others' feelings.  Understanding how we react to fictitious characters in movies, animations or games, could help us design programming that would help autistic children deal with their emotions.