Learning about Autism One Yawn at a Time

This podcast explores the phenomenon of contagious yawning, focusing on a study investigating its link to empathy. The study compared contagious yawning responses in autistic and non-autistic children to stimuli depicting yawning and non-yawning mouth movements. Children without autism yawned significantly more often in response to the yawning stimuli. This research suggests a correlation between empathy and contagious yawning, with implications for understanding autism and social cue processing. The findings may contribute to future studies on the neural mechanisms underlying both contagious yawning and empathy.