Monday, September 24, 2007

Contagious Yawning

Fron Mindhacks come this study published by the British Psychological Society that claims that people with ASDs are immune to contagious yawning.
"Past research has found that seeing the eye region of someone yawn is key to the yawn's contagious effects. So perhaps the fact that people with autism are known to focus more on the mouth region of people's faces, rather than the eyes, could partly explain the current findings.Atsushi Senju and colleagues said their results “support the claim that contagious yawning and the capacity of empathy share common neural and cognitive mechanisms.' "

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