Post #9 Extra Credit #1

As an extra credit post, I chose to read two articles, 'Why is Yawning Contagious' and 'Pet Dogs Can Catch Human Yawns,' to relate the two as well as relate them to personal experiences.

Before reading either one of the articles, I thought the act of yawning came from your body telling you, you were tired. But it turns out, according to a new study found the purpose of yawning is to cool the brain so it operates more efficiently and keeps you awake. In a way this hypothesis does make sense, but at the same time it contradicts everything I thought about it in the past of it being a sign I needed to rest and sleep. Which means my whole childhood life was a sham, when ever I would yawn my mother would send me off to take a nap or go to bed for the night. Of course I would protest the entire way too. However, according to the dog article, a yawn can either mean you are tired, or it can be stress induced. 

The idea of a yawn being stressed induced it fascinating to me, because this would mean high schoolers and college aged kids would yawn much more than a five year old child or an infant. From personal experience, I feel I yawn more late at nights. Now whether that is from being up late or being stressed from procrastinating on my homework, I have no idea. But neither article seemed to mention the idea of boredom, because I feel that is the main reason I yawn during the day. During a typical school day I will yawn about tent times because I am bored sitting in class doing nothing or something I find irrelevant to my learning. 

As for the idea of a dog being able to catch a human's yawn, I feel this is very much true. The original reason I chose to read this article, was because I do have a dog and I know I have caught yawns from him. He'll yawn right as I look over him, and I end up needing to yawn immediately after. The study demonstrates how a human would yawn in front of the dog and see if the dog would yawn back, and 21 out of 29 times it would. To boost the legitimacy of the study another test would involve a human just opening and closing their mouth to see a response, and there was no response at all. And apparently humans can catch dog's yawns too, well, at least I can. 

The act of catching a yawn, records back to the idea of, not exactly natural selection, but rather instinct. It is part of something called the 'herding principle,' which relates yawning to be in the same concept is a flock of birds all flying together. In coordination with the cooling theory, yawning was thought to have to do with human vigilance. While yet another study believes it historic periods, it was used to maintain sleep cycles as well as a way to communicate their alertness levels with one another. 

This of course all seems prehistoric to me, so I think for now I will just try and communicate to my dog how stressed I am with his behavior late at nights; that way I have my bases covered.