The Contagious Yawning Mystery: Mirror Neurons, Empathy, and Robots

This literature review explores the neural mechanisms and social implications of contagious yawning. Studies suggest a link between contagious yawning and the mirror neuron system, and empathy, found across primates and some other species, and even explored in robotics research. Researchers examined the relationship between contagious yawning and kinship, familiarity, social interaction, and compared differences across species through experiments and observations. This research offers new insights into understanding social cognition in humans and animals, and the development of more socially intelligent robots.