Do you yawn when someone else does?

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I don't.

I don't, and I don't understand why people are supposed to do it.

Nope. Well, I have done a few times since I found out that you're 'supposed' to yawn when someone else does. Not through choice though, I have always uncontrollably done things which I think are expected of me.

I make a convincing fake yawn, too, if I see someone else do it and remember I'm supposed to. If I'm busy, no.

i only yawn in response when i see/hear someone that i love yawning. if it is a stranger or acquaintance or someone on a tv screen, i don't yawn.

Why pretend?

Very interesting thread. I had no idea there was a statistically reduced contagious effect on the spectrum, from witnessing other people yawning.

Unfortunately for me, I've always found other people yawning very contagious. Even when I'm busy and concentrating on other tasks. I can even feel quite awake beforehand, then see a single person yawn and I immediately feel the urge to yawn. Then that's it, I'm yawning for hours and grumbling in my mind about that darned person who made me yawn in the first place. It's certainly not a conscious decision.

Last edited by Chris71 on 07 Jan 2013, 10:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

Same here! But my autism is a little bit atypical.

I remember even as a kid, long before my diagnoses, that I hardly ever yawned when other people did, even though it's supposed to be contagious. Supposedly it's some prehistoric gene where it would make us more alert before hunting or eating or whatever by making us take in more oxygen than usual, but mainly we do it when we want to sleep or rest but can't or are not allowed. But one thing I have noticed is that I seem to get the yawns somewhere in mid-afternoon (when I should probably be taking a nap), and that I should be more careful not to yawn in public right after the holidays. Because last week I went to a store on Jan. 2nd and happened to yawn and the other women at the checkout started making wise-cracks about "post-holiday fatigue" - that's what I called it, not them. I told them I didn't think that was true in my case because I don't have a husband or kids to spoil and don't do a lot of cooking and baking during the holidays, no more than usual anyway. But for some reason it really bugs me when people make assumptions that I'm tired because I've been working like a slave in the kitchen the past couple of weeks, it's like assuming all adults on New Year's Day are hungover, and I don't even drink! I used to also have to avoid yawning in front of my math teacher, which was nearly impossible, back in junior high. She was a private teacher and I was her only student since regular classes would mess up me up so badly, but if I did things like yawn or glance at my watch she'd practically bite my head off!

Time for a poll/ experiment ? Maybe someone wants to start one; go on, you know you want to!

Question: "Do you find other people yawning has a contagious effect on you ?"

Option A - Have Aspergers - Not usually affected by others yawning
Option B - Have Aspergers - Do find yawning contagious

Option C - Other/PDD NOS - Not usually affected by others yawning
Option D - Other/PDD NOS - Do find yawning contagious

Option E - Not on spectrum - Not usually affected by others yawning
Option F - Not on spectrum - Do find yawning contagious

Then we can do some nice pie charts and statistical analysis of our own.

i have mentioned my disinclination to yawn at the sight of other people yawning a few times on this site (with respect to my disaffectation) , although those posts are very old now.

i see all things about other people from an external point of view. i never am influenced internally by what i see other people doing.

i have noticed also that people who see other people laughing will smile in tandem even though they do not know what the other people are laughing about.
i never am affected by other people's laughter. i note that they are laughing, but that is as far as it goes.

when people watch major sporting events on a TV in a pub (which i only use to obtain my dinner from and then i go home), and when their "team" scores a goal or something, they all erupt with a euphoric and energetic applause, and they slap each other on their backs, and the "feeling" seems to spread like wildfire. it is like i have a soul composed of asbestos, and i am impervious to that feeling that permeates through everyone else in the room. i have often been challenged in a hostile way for remaining neutral of mood in circumstances such as those. now i never dine at the tavern on nights where sporting events are being broadcast to their TV's.

i do not wince when i see someone get hurt. that is also a problem for me.
i was waiting once at tammy's parents place for tammy to get ready to go out with me, and while i was waiting, i sat on the lounge in the living room with her parents as they watched "funniest home videos". none of the videos were about funny homes, but they were about executive mistakes that people filmed.

anyway, some of the videos showed people banging their heads on the road (or similar) after departing from their skateboards or their bicycles etc.
i noticed that tammy's parents said "ooh" and "ahh" while they watched the videos, and they noticed that i was unmoved by the videos (i found that out a few weeks later when tammy related some "gossip" from her parents about me).

when 9/11 happened, i was a systems analyst at a company, and i worked from 9am until 5pm for 5 days a week.

the TV in the tea room was showing the event, and everyone was fixated on the TV.
as the buildings fell, every one was severely moved to an emotional overload, and i presumed that they were feeling the same as i was feeling. i felt a deep sense of sadness that the towers had collapsed because they were among my favorite buildings in the world. i also wondered whether the next version of flight simulator would not have those buildings included in the scenery for new york.

once i started to say what i felt about the event, i was lambasted by the other employees for what they considered to be an "inhumanly shallow" concept of what had just happened.
i did not think about the people in the building who lost their lives. i was upset about the loss of the twin towers and the destruction of the 2 planes.

that night i felt sad that i was so shallow and i wished i had not said what i said in the tea room. the people at the office never really liked me after that.

i first knew i was emotionally blind and ethically bankrupt due to my witnessing a documentary on TV (when i was about 20 with my then girlfriend) about the hindenburg disaster. when the reporter said "oh the humanity!" i did not register the the emotive aspect of what he said. i just thought it was very silly to fill a dirigible with hydrogen, and i was enthralled to see it being consumed so rapidly by fire, and my girlfriend was so disgusted that she decided to go home.
i did not notice the people spilling out of the vehicle, and i did not consider their plights.

i am very much annoyed that i can not see the things that good people can see, and i am a bit sad that i am considered a subhuman by many people due to my inability to connect with the deeper emotional side of things.

whatever. i am off topic now so i will say no more in this thread.

I feel like I need to yawn just by thinking about it. It doesn't have anything to do with someone else being in the room with me. My dog actually yawns when I yawn, which is interesting if you're into the behavioral evolution of dogs. I suspect I wouldn't see the same result with wolves.

People get uneasy when behavior is off. It pays well to make every effort to keep my coworkers feeling safe and normal. I have made an art and mastery of facial expressions. I probably use the wrong ones at the wrong times on occasion still, but I practiced in the mirror for years and can mimic any expression. Complete control of every face muscle, I can move my eyebrows not only up and down but also out and back in and twist them clockwise and counter clockwise, I can flare one nostril at a time, wiggle my nose, wiggle one ear at a time - people flex their ears simultaneously to show genuine interest or firm assertion in a subject, did you ever notice that? Anyway, it became a game for awhile to make the wrong faces and observe the severity of their reactions in my teen years. Coming from extreme poverty I had intense motivation to earn the attention and respect of people, since it often got our family free dinners. Hunger is a good motivator, so I made a hobby of it early on. Facial Studies, the learning might be titled if it exists. I use it every day, it's a conscious effort, and it REALLY fails on strong NT socialite types. They use forms of sarcasm two and three layers deep, so unless you understand which codes of conduct of which they approve, disapprove and are currently commenting on and to whom, the difficulty increases rapidly.

A girl at work got at me for my bad handwriting today, so I switched hands and wrote the rest of the form with my left hand. When I asked her how it looked she made a face I could NOT interpret, and she refused to explain herself. So I have no idea whether I impressed her, scared her, or she though I was mocking her. She scored about a 0 on the aspie quiz I had her take for kicks.

Not everyone yawns when someone yawns. I've often been in the canteen at work and only one person yawns. But I'm not saying I've never seen it happen before because I have with my relatives. I have wanted to yawn when somebody else yawns, but always afraid to do it because I feel embarrassed if someone said ''ah, I'm making you yawn now!'' So I kind of hold it back.

Did nothing for me never did.

By the way, that video was funny!
Didn't yawn a single time but I had to laugh instead. This looks a bit silly when there is a big group of people yawning at the same time displayed on a photo.

But now that I think about it, I don't think I ever yawned when a stranger did next to me, the only times are usually when mother, father or brother do... Maybe it has to do with knowing the person in my case?