ArticleScientific reports2023
Yawning and scratching contagion in wild spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi).
Article in Scientific reports, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- The play fever: individual and group factors influence the contagion of play behaviour within social hominid groups.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2026Article
- Contagious yawning is stronger in wolves than in dog-admixed wolves.Animal cognition · 2026Article
- Behavioral Contagion in Wild Ecuadorian White-Fronted Capuchins (Cebus aequatorialis).American journal of primatology · 2026Article
- Yawning as Therapy? The Potential of the Conditioned Yawn Reflex as a Novel Treatment for Insomnia Disorder.Journal of sleep research · 2025Article
- Inertia and Rapid Divergence in the Evolution of Yawning: A Comparison Between Two Closely Related but Socially Different Monkeys.American journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Costs of Early Stone Toolmaking cannot Establish the Presence of Know-how Copying.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Monkeys increase scratching when encountering unexpected good fortune.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- If you blink at me, I'll blink back. Domestic dogs' feedback to conspecific visual cues.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Affective bodily responses in monkeys predict subsequent pessimism, but not vice versa.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Yawn Contagion and Modality-Matching in the Female-Bonded Society of Geladas (Theropithecus gelada).American journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Contagious yawning and scratching in captive lemurs.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- More than a simple fixed action pattern: Yawning in drills.Primates; journal of primatology · 2024Article
- The sound of yawns makes geladas yawn.Scientific reports · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Behavioural contagion is a widespread phenomenon in animal species, which is thought to promote coordination and group cohesion. Among non-human primates, however, there is no evidence of behavioural contagion in Platyrrhines (i.e. primates from South and Central America) yet. Here, we investigated whether behavioural contagion is also present in this taxon, by assessing yawning and scratching contagion in a wild group (N = 49) of Geoffroy's spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi). We conducted focal samples to examine whether individuals observing the triggering event (i.e. a naturally occurring yawning or scratching event in the group) would be more likely to yawn or scratch in the following 3 min, as compared to individuals who did not observe the triggering event. We ran generalized linear mixed models using a Bayesian approach, and found that the probability of yawning and scratching was higher for individuals observing others yawning and scratching, respectively, as compared to individuals who did not observe such an event. Behavioural contagion did not vary depending on the observer's sex, kinship or relationship quality with the individual performing the triggering event. These findings provide the first evidence for yawning and scratching contagion in a wild group of spider monkeys, and importantly contribute to the debate about the evolutionary origins of behavioural contagion in primates.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.