The chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes) can ‘get infected’ of the yawns of an android that mimics human facial expressions, according to a new research from the University of London City St George’s published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports.
The study has shown that chimpanzees yawn and lie down in response to the yawns of an android, suggesting that this gesture can act as a signal to rest instead of simply triggering an automatic response.
According to the authors, it is the first time that it is shown that a yawn can also be contagious even if it comes from an inanimate model.
The contagious yawn, in which to see yawning another animal causes a yawning response in an individual, is observed mainly in mammals and some fish. However, the evolutionary origins of yawning are not yet known and why it is infected, even among different species.
To do this study, the honorary researcher Ramiro Joly-Mascheroni and Professor Beatriz Calvo-Merino, both of the City St George’s, along with researchers at the University of Girona, used an android head to simulate facial expressions and evaluate the responses of fourteen chimpanzees between 10 and 33 years of the Mona Primate Sanctuary Foundation, in Spain.
The android head produced facial expressions – among them yawning – with a duration of 10 seconds each facial movement. The chimpanzees showed contagious yawns in response to the ‘yawn’ of the android.
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Chimpanzees are infected with the yawns of the androids
The adult chimpanzees responded gradually depending on the different facial expressions of the android.
The spread of yawn was greater when the Android showed his mouth completely open (“yawn”), minor when the mouth was partially open (“speechless”) and void when the mouth of the Android was closed.
For Joly-Mascheroni, these findings “show that chimpanzees exhibit yawning when a non-biological inanimate agent triggers it, a humanoid android, which seems to be yawning.”
“Despite its primary functions difficult to define,” we still don’t know exactly why we yawn, much less why it is contagious, “yawn can continue to have a very old nonverbal communicative function from the evolutionary point of view, and its contagious appearance can help us discover more about how human beings and animals developed forms of communication and social interaction.”
“Exploring the yawning responses of primates towards an artificial agent helps us understand the mechanism of social cognition and interactions beyond human beings. This interdisciplinary research improves collaboration between disciplines such as psychology, robotics and zoology, Calvo-Merino adds.
Researchers believe that the mechanisms that underlie this response still require more research to clarify whether other actions carried out by robots or artificial agents are contagious for animals and to what extent they resemble the response in humans.
With EFE information.
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