14 DAY TRIAL // According to a research whose findings were published in yesterday's issue of the scientific journal PLOS ONE, yawning is much more contagious that we'd suspect.
Apparently, yawning spreads not just from one person to another, but also from humans to dogs. Experiments have shown that, when seeing a person yawn, pooches respond by yawning themselves.
Scientists further detail that, as surprising as this may sound, dogs are quicker to respond to their owner's yawning than to a stranger's.
This suggests that yawning in dogs is an empathetic response and not a sign of distress, as some have previously argued, Science Daily explains.
Specialist Teresa Romero at the University of Tokyo sums up these findings as follows: “Our study suggests that contagious yawning in dogs is emotionally connected in a way similar to humans.”
Furthermore, “Although our study cannot determine the exact underlying mechanism operative in dogs, the subjects' physiological measures taken during the study allowed us to counter the alternative hypothesis of yawning as a distress response.”