driver drowsiness has been one of the main causes of on-road crashes which can lead to death, physical injuries and impose significant costs on the societies. the development of non-intrusive methods to be able to detect driver drowsiness in the early stages of drowsiness is great of importance. this is an educational review and its purpose is to provide recent achievements about non-intrusive ...

The purpose of this study was to take a critical look at a voice therapy technique known as the yawn-sigh. The voiced sigh as an approach in voice therapy has had increased use in recent years, particularly with problems of vocal hyperfunction. In this study, the physiology of the yawn-sigh was studied with video nasoendoscopy in eight normal subjects; their taped voices were also studied acous...

The ability to share others' emotions, or empathy, is crucial for complex social interactions. Clinical, psychological, and neurobiological clues suggest a link between yawn contagion and empathy in humans (Homo sapiens). However, no behavioral evidence has been provided so far. We tested the effect of different variables (e.g., country of origin, sex, yawn characteristics) on yawn contagion by...

Three hypotheses have attempted to explain the phenomenon of contagious yawning. It has been hypothesized that it is a fixed action pattern for which the releasing stimulus is the observation of another yawn, that it is the result of non-conscious mimicry emerging through close links between perception and action or that it is the result of empathy, involving the ability to engage in mental sta...

Stretching and yawning (known as pandiculation when they occur together) are under-researched features of behavior. Ethologists agree that almost all vertebrates yawn (Deputte, 1974). Yawning is morphologically similar in reptiles, birds, mammals and fish. These behaviors may be ancestral vestiges maintained throughout evolution with little variation (phylogenetic old origins). Systematic and c...

Research indicates that the motor action pattern of yawning functions to promote cortical arousal and state change through enhanced intracranial circulation and brain cooling. Because the magnitude of this response likely corresponds to the degree of neurophysiological change, we hypothesized that interspecies variation in yawn duration would correlate with underlying neurological differences. ...