ArticlePhysiology & behavior2014
A thermal window for yawning in humans: yawning as a brain cooling mechanism.
Article in Physiology & behavior, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 51 citations in OpenAlex.
- Contagious yawning is stronger in wolves than in dog-admixed wolves.Animal cognition · 2026Article
- Article
- Fetal yawning and mouth openings: Frequency, developmental trends, and association with birth weight.PloS one · 2026Article
- Article
- Yawning as Therapy? The Potential of the Conditioned Yawn Reflex as a Novel Treatment for Insomnia Disorder.Journal of sleep research · 2025Article
- Yawning in sync: implications for social cohesion in horses.Current zoology · 2025Article
- Reply to letter to the editor regarding "yawning and airway physiology: a scoping review and novel hypothesis".Sleep & breathing = Schlaf & Atmung · 2023Article
- The evidence does not support long-term oxygenation as a functional explanation for the evolution of yawning.Sleep & breathing = Schlaf & Atmung · 2023Article
- Interspecific Contagious Yawning in Humans.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Factors affecting yawning frequencies in preterm neonates.PloS one · 2022Article
- The sigh and related behaviors.Handbook of clinical neurology · 2022Review
- Selective Brain Cooling: A New Horizon of Neuroprotection.Frontiers in neurology · 2022Review
- Two forms of yawning modulation in three months old infants during the Face to Face Still Face paradigm.PloS one · 2022Article
- People that score high on psychopathic traits are less likely to yawn contagiously.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Brain size and neuron numbers drive differences in yawn duration across mammals and birds.Communications biology · 2021Article
- Experimental evidence for yawn contagion in orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus).Scientific reports · 2020Article
- One thousand yawns.Primates; journal of primatology · 2020Article
- Brain weight predicts yawn duration across domesticated dog breeds.Current zoology · 2020Article
- Low relationship quality predicts scratch contagion during tense situations in orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus).American journal of primatology · 2020Article
- Auditory Contagious Yawning Is Highest Between Friends and Family Members: Support to the Emotional Bias Hypothesis.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The thermoregulatory theory of yawning posits that yawns function to cool the brain in part due to counter-current heat exchange with the deep inhalation of ambient air. Consequently, yawning should be constrained to an optimal thermal zone or range of temperature, i.e., a thermal window, in which we should expect a lower frequency at extreme temperatures. Previous research shows that yawn frequency diminishes as ambient temperatures rise and approach body temperature, but a lower bound to the thermal window has not been demonstrated. To test this, a total of 120 pedestrians were sampled for susceptibly to self-reported yawn contagion during distinct temperature ranges and seasons (winter: 1.4°C, n=60; summer: 19.4°C, n=60). As predicted, the proportion of pedestrians reporting yawning was significantly lower during winter than in summer (18.3% vs. 41.7%), with temperature being the only significant predictor of these differences across seasons. The underlying mechanism for yawning in humans, both spontaneous and contagious, appears to be involved in brain thermoregulation.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.