{"id":6473,"date":"2014-03-16T07:02:24","date_gmt":"2014-03-16T07:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=6473"},"modified":"2014-03-16T07:02:24","modified_gmt":"2014-03-16T07:02:24","slug":"catching-a-yawn-is-linked-to-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=6473","title":{"rendered":"Catching a yawn is linked to age"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"pd_yawning_070730_ms\"<\/a>People are less likely to yawn when others do as they get older, a study has found.<\/p>\n

Contagious yawning is linked more closely to a person’s age than their ability to empathise, as previously thought, US-based scientists said.<\/p>\n

It also showed a stronger link to age than tiredness or energy levels.<\/p>\n

Researchers are now looking at whether the ability to catch yawns from other people is inherited, with the hope of helping treat mental health disorders.<\/p>\n

Autism and schizophrenia sufferers are reportedly less able to catch yawns, researchers said, so understanding the genes that might code for contagious yawning could illuminate new pathways for treatment.<\/p>\n

In the study, published in the journal Plos One, 328 participants were shown a three-minute video showing other people yawning.<\/p>\n

Each subject had to click a button every time they yawned.<\/p>\n

Levels of tiredness<\/p>\n

Overall, 68% of the participants yawned. Of those, 82% of people aged under 25 yawned, compared with 60% of people aged between 25 and 49, and 41% of people aged over 50.<\/p>\n

Dr Elizabeth Cirulli, assistant professor of medicine at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, led the study.<\/p>\n

She said: “This is the first study to look at a whole bunch of factors. It is the largest study, in terms of the number of people involved, to date.”<\/p>\n

Dr Cirulli said she did not know why contagious yawning decreased with age.<\/p>\n

She added that although age was the most important predictor of contagious yawning, only 8% of the variation in whether or not a participant yawned was explained by their age.<\/p>\n

“The vast majority of variation in the contagious yawning response was just not explained,” said Dr Cirulli.<\/p>\n

The study used questionnaires to test the participants’ empathy, levels of tiredness and sleep patterns.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, intelligence was assessed using cognitive tests.<\/p>\n

Neurological ‘nitty-gritty’<\/p>\n

Robert R Provine, professor of psychology at the University of Maryland in Baltimore County, said the study was “unique” as it marked the first time a link between ageing and contagious yawning had been shown.<\/p>\n

He said the study would “help to get down to the neurological nitty-gritty of contagious behaviours” and mental health disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.<\/p>\n

Prof Provine said the findings could also help to understand why laughing and coughing were so contagious.<\/p>\n

He added: “Contagious acts such as yawning and laughing remind us that we are often mindless beasts of the herd, not rational beings in full conscious control of our behaviour.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People are less likely to yawn when others do as they get older, a study has found. Contagious yawning is linked more closely to a person’s age than their ability to empathise, as previously thought, US-based scientists said. It also showed a stronger link to age than tiredness or energy levels. Researchers are now looking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-6473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-togbe-afede-xiv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}