Babies Are Psychopaths

[00:00] Coalson, I heard through the grapevine that you've had questions that you need
[00:05] answered, and some of these have been for a very long time.
[00:10] We do under Googles. That was the play of Super Excited.
[00:21] You told us we had to.
[00:23] We said we signed up for it.
[00:28] In the end it's gonna be better and more true than Google can give you.
[00:33] Yeah, I've been holding on to this one for a while.
[00:37] Because I feel like it needed all four of us.
[00:41] I feel like it might be a complicated question. I could be wrong.
[00:44] I'm surrounded by really smart guys.
[00:46] But here's what I got.
[00:49] Yawning.
[00:51] Okay, so I think my understanding of yawning is that it is
[00:58] the diaphragm constricting
[01:03] that there's a lack of oxygen and the body's trying to grasp gas for oxygen.
[01:08] Is that correct?
[01:11] I have no idea.
[01:13] Sure, but yes.
[01:15] That's what I always assumed.
[01:17] It is an influx of air.
[01:19] Yeah, for sure.
[01:21] Yeah, it's definitely an oxygen grab.
[01:23] Okay, so if that is a very basic understanding of what yawning is,
[01:29] this is a larger conversation.
[01:33] Why evolutionarily would my yawn make someone else yawn?
[01:41] I think you're confusing psychology or with evolution.
[01:50] I don't think that there's any known evolutionary instinct to yawn with someone else.
[01:56] But when you see somebody, even across Skype,
[01:59] if you yawn, Jason, I'm probably gonna yawn.
[02:02] Why does that happen?
[02:04] I think that's psychological and there's not some sort of evolutionary basis
[02:09] for why I could make other people yawn in a community.
[02:14] I mean, I think it has more to do with community probably than evolution per se.
[02:21] I would say that there's probably no known evolutionary benefit to group yawning.
[02:27] That's what I'm saying. It seems weird to me.
[02:29] Why would I want to make other people tired?
[02:33] I mean, if it is a social bond builder that has altruistic and community benefits
[02:41] for you and your offspring, right?
[02:44] So that may be one avenue, but I don't think that it would be a driving force,
[02:49] a driving behavior or phenotype evolutionarily.
[02:57] Yeah, that's gonna help you survive in any immediate way.
[03:01] It's not gonna help you get away from a mammoth faster.
[03:04] Well, no, so that's my question though, right?
[03:06] So like, okay, look, I am apparently, my body is slowing down, right?
[03:11] As I get tired, everything is constricting.
[03:16] I need to grasp some air, right? My body is slowing down.
[03:20] My diaphragm constricts, I grasp air, I yawn.
[03:24] I then suggest to the people around me that I'm tired.
[03:28] Is that some sort of, that could be a cue to the community
[03:33] that one person in that group is now vulnerable to an attack of somebody else.
[03:40] But why would you want other people to start yawning?
[03:43] You would just want them to come, you know?
[03:48] Well, I mean, you wouldn't also, I mean, yeah, so,
[03:51] want doesn't have anything to do with it.
[03:53] I understand want doesn't have anything to do with it.
[03:55] But what's the, why is there a physical reaction to other people yawning?
[03:58] I guess is my question.
[04:00] Assuming that we've honed in on the fact that why we yawn,
[04:04] which is maybe not true. I don't know. I'm bad at science.
[04:08] Well, I mean, I think there's two distinct questions there, right?
[04:13] I mean, for sure.
[04:18] Why a yawn induces yawning in other people?
[04:25] Yes.
[04:27] Is one question. And then another question is,
[04:32] is there an evolutionary benefit to that?
[04:36] Yes.
[04:37] Right? Is that what we're getting at?
[04:39] Yes. And also, is yawning actually just a grasp for air
[04:44] when you're tired and your body is slowing down?
[04:46] Okay, so it's three questions. Why do we yawn?
[04:49] Why does yawning?
[04:51] Induce other yawning.
[04:52] Induce other yawning.
[04:53] And is there evolutionary benefit to yawning?
[04:56] To group yawning specifically.
[05:00] Group yawning, yes.
[05:01] Right. Yeah.
[05:02] I mean, for the purposes of yawning, you can say, well,
[05:05] as your body, you know, the longer you're awake,
[05:08] essentially the less efficient you get at everything.
[05:10] Correct. Yeah.
[05:11] Sleep is there for recharging, right?
[05:13] Right.
[05:15] So yawning has purpose in that it gets you more O2 than a regular
[05:22] breathing cycle.
[05:23] Okay.
[05:25] Is that an answer?
[05:27] That makes sense why you would yawn.
[05:29] And I always connected to the diaphragm.
[05:32] When we look it up, I don't know if that'll be the case,
[05:34] but I thought I was.
[05:35] Well, the diaphragm is just how you breathe.
[05:36] Okay. So is it contracting?
[05:38] If you're talking about a spasmodic,
[05:42] diaphragmatic action, you're thinking more of sneezing.
[05:45] If spasmodic, diaphragmatic action isn't the title of this episode.
[05:50] You're going to be so pissed.
[05:52] Stop putting in protest.
[05:57] Jason has spoken.
[05:58] That'll be the title.
[06:01] Yeah.
[06:03] I mean, I can't think of reasons why it would induce yawning
[06:08] other than just it's a social cue.
[06:10] And yeah, we as humans like to be part of a group.
[06:16] And if that's the thing that's happening, I mean, like there's
[06:19] several social cues that induce this similar behavior, right?
[06:23] I would imagine in humans, right?
[06:25] Okay. So like what?
[06:26] Like, I mean, I would guess smiling would be.
[06:29] Laughter.
[06:30] A similar one.
[06:31] Yeah, laughter, clapping, you know, like, I think there's
[06:36] tons of things that people do.
[06:38] And then they're like, oh yeah, people are doing it.
[06:40] Yay, I'm going to do this.
[06:42] I think that that is just, I think that the fact that
[06:46] yawning falls under that category is just a by-product
[06:50] of a different behavioral repertoire, I guess.
[06:57] So involuntary yawning is basically to be a part of the
[07:02] group on some level.
[07:03] Right.
[07:04] That's my guess.
[07:05] That would also be my guess.
[07:06] And, you know, like Jason said, I mean, there is
[07:11] empathy and group building, right?
[07:12] Sure.
[07:13] For sure.
[07:14] Okay.
[07:15] Okay.
[07:16] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[07:17] Evolutionarily.
[07:18] Yeah.
[07:19] But would it make sense for if the first creature in
[07:24] a group who got tired to sort of warn everybody else
[07:28] he was tired, and then so sort of as a group, we
[07:31] would maybe call it a night, you know?
[07:35] As a form of pre-verbal communication.
[07:38] Yeah.
[07:39] Like, you know, I mean, potentially, yeah.
[07:43] I mean, you could imagine if you're, I would think
[07:46] that maybe it would have a, not necessarily the
[07:49] leader of the group, but maybe the weaker of the
[07:52] group, right?
[07:53] Like, if you're kids or if the babies start yawning,
[08:00] then you're like, all right, I got to find a place
[08:03] to, like, hunker down for a couple hours or
[08:05] whatever, let these little munchkins sleep, and
[08:10] then we'll go for some more food or whatever.
[08:13] Like, that actually does make a little bit of sense,
[08:15] I guess.
[08:16] That does make sense.
[08:17] And if the leader of said group has a reaction
[08:22] to it that is, you know, involuntary, sometimes
[08:27] even if you don't notice it, perhaps then you
[08:30] become aware of it and that would help you make
[08:32] good group decisions.
[08:33] I mean, I don't know that anyone's ever proven
[08:36] that, but I mean, that would be a fairly direct
[08:39] evolutionary work.
[08:40] And you're just kind of powering through and
[08:41] you're like, ah, screw it, I'm not tired, and
[08:43] then all of a sudden you're yawning, and you're
[08:44] like, why am I doing that?
[08:45] Oh, it's because the kids in the back are
[08:47] yawning.
[08:48] Yeah, no, that could work.
[08:50] Although, I don't, I mean, I don't know that
[08:52] Cape Man knew what yawning meant.
[08:55] Hmm, okay.
[08:56] Yeah, so I think the next question is, is that
[08:59] behavior, is the ability to induce a yawn
[09:03] human specific, or is it across species?
[09:08] Like, do we find this behavior in other mammals,
[09:11] right?
[09:12] I feel like, I feel like monkey yawn.
[09:14] No, I know that other animals yawn, but do
[09:17] they, if a dog sees another dog yawn, is there
[09:23] a high probability that they are going to yawn?
[09:26] Right.
[09:27] Yeah.
[09:28] When your dog yawns, does it make you yawn?
[09:30] Yeah, I don't even think that happens.
[09:33] Or when you yawned as your dog yawn, that's,
[09:36] that's, maybe.
[09:37] My dog's lazy.
[09:38] He yawns all the time.
[09:39] I was going to say, my dog's lazy.
[09:40] Hell yeah.
[09:41] There's no, there's no statistical noise.
[09:45] Like, you can't pull out patterns.
[09:47] Like, oh, it must be morning, noon, or night.
[09:50] Yeah, exactly.
[09:52] We better stop for a rest.
[09:56] Yeah, so I mean, we have a theory, I guess.
[10:02] We have a thesis.
[10:06] Time to Google?
[10:07] Yeah.
[10:08] Yeah, thanks.
[10:09] Oh, I was talking about this killer.
[10:16] So there's a recent paper in Current Biology
[10:20] titled A Neural Basis for Contagious Yawning.
[10:24] So they've located a circuit.
[10:29] The phenomenon is called eco-phenomena.
[10:33] And it is not just a human trait.
[10:40] So this abstract claims that contagious yawning
[10:45] affects 60% of healthy humans,
[10:48] and at a lesser rate in great apes and other primates.
[10:53] What I'm saying here is that chimpanzees and dogs
[10:56] do exhibit contagious yawning.
[11:00] So, so, okay, sorry.
[11:02] Contagious yawning is a type of eco-phenomena
[11:06] of which there are many, as we suspected,
[11:09] imitation of another's words,
[11:11] which is echolalia or actions, echopraxia.
[11:18] So this abstract suggests susceptibility
[11:23] to contagious yawns correlated with the speed
[11:25] in recognizing one's own face,
[11:27] theory of mind processing,
[11:29] and is also associated with activation
[11:31] in regions of the brain that have been associated
[11:34] with cognitive processes.
[11:35] I'm not reading this whole paper.
[11:37] But that seems, that seems like a lot.
[11:42] There's been some studies on social scratching in mice.
[11:47] I'll show a mouse, one video of the mouse
[11:51] scratching itself, and then the mice
[11:55] that are watching that video usually
[11:57] start scratching themselves, too.
[12:02] They're recognizing a useful behavior
[12:05] without thinking they decide,
[12:07] this must be useful, so I better do it.
[12:09] So it seems like there's no consensus
[12:13] on why we yawn.
[12:15] Yeah, that's what I'm getting to.
[12:26] One is, one is to, you know,
[12:30] a special kind of respiration or whatever.
[12:33] Another is to cool the brain,
[12:36] or to stretch internal organs like tissues
[12:39] and lungs helping the body to liven up.
[12:42] Yeah, I don't know.
[12:43] There's definitely some suggestion that
[12:45] a change in breathing patterns due to boredom
[12:48] and such causes people to yawn.
[12:52] I've seen that.
[12:53] I mean, that doesn't seem to be any really
[12:56] great consensus about either why we do it,
[13:01] or even really what it achieves.
[13:04] So basically, we've cracked something
[13:06] that needs to be studied, Jason.
[13:08] Get on that.
[13:10] Yeah.
[13:11] Just telling him to do it.
[13:12] I mean, he's in a lab and stuff.
[13:14] He's smart.
[13:15] He's a scientist.
[13:16] I don't want to speak for Jason,
[13:17] but I feel like he's already kind of busy.
[13:19] But you know, he can totally swing his lab
[13:21] to do something different, I'm sure.
[13:22] Get those glowing mice to start yawning.
[13:25] I mean, there are publications
[13:27] looking at yawning from an evolutionary perspective.
[13:35] So certainly, this is an idea that people have,
[13:40] that it's, let's see, comparative analysis
[13:48] suggests that yawning has two major features,
[13:50] communication, one, whereby the behavior
[13:54] of other individuals is affected,
[13:56] and two, direct physiological benefit,
[13:59] whereby the organism is receiving
[14:01] some direct benefit, obviously.
[14:04] Yeah.
[14:05] It apparently does stimulate your body,
[14:07] so your heart rate goes up.
[14:10] So it's, yeah, it's caffeine.
[14:14] Milan and Anderson did a study with infants,
[14:18] and apparently infants yawn normally
[14:21] after awake in the morning and the afternoon
[14:24] in naps, but they showed no signs
[14:29] of contagious yawning.
[14:32] This study decided that babies are psychopaths.
[14:34] Contagious yawning can be induced in children
[14:37] only after four years of age.
[14:40] As below this age group, the neural mechanisms
[14:43] required to understand the mental state
[14:45] of others is still under development.
[14:47] Interesting.
[14:48] Yeah, psychopaths, that's what I said.
[14:51] So that's cool.
[14:52] So it is related to empathy, then, on some level.
[14:54] It's not just something that is instinctual
[14:57] to save you from being tired in the plane
[15:03] and some animal's going to come eat you.
[15:06] It is some sort of communal thing.
[15:09] So according to some studies,
[15:13] okay, so contagious yawning has been observed
[15:16] in chimps, dogs, cats, birds, and reptiles,
[15:20] and can occur between members of different species,
[15:24] including from humans to dogs.
[15:29] I mean, it's this side of paper from 2008,
[15:32] but we'll take their word for it at this point.
[15:38] So it seems like yawning does a bunch of little things.
[15:42] Yeah.
[15:45] Apparently you can yawn in utero.
[15:49] Oh, really?
[15:50] Yeah.
[15:51] That's interesting.
[15:52] What the hell is that good for?
[15:54] Yeah.
[15:59] You're not getting air out of that.
[16:01] Or probably effectively cooling your brain,
[16:07] or just giving that old heart a good workout.
[16:09] Yeah, or letting anybody else know that you're tired.
[16:13] Maybe you're just bored.
[16:15] Yeah, could be a lot of that in there.
[16:17] Yeah, doing the same thing every day.
[16:19] They don't have iPads in there at all.
[16:22] We need to start getting that.
[16:26] A little screen time.
[16:29] Maybe mom's boring, you know?
[16:31] So the reason I asked this question is I didn't know enough about yawning,
[16:38] and what I've learned is that nobody knows enough about yawning.
[16:41] I assumed it was contracting diaphragms, and it's not even that.
[16:44] I know enough about yawning.
[16:46] I think we know the right amount.
[16:49] But there's hella people studying it, I think.
[16:52] Okay, well, somebody needs to...
[16:54] I think there is an appropriate number of people chasing down me.
[16:58] Maybe we could funnel a few of those to climate change.
[17:04] Nope, we gotta solve this.
[17:06] Nope.
[17:07] Somebody get the answer on this.
[17:09] Let me know.
[17:10] Yeah.
[17:13] Joey, your yawning on the Skype is just killing me, buddy.
[17:16] In fact, actually, one of the studies I was reading was saying that
[17:20] even discussion of yawning can cause yawning.
[17:22] Yeah, so that's what...
[17:24] The whole time we were talking about this, I started yawning.
[17:27] And then I'm looking up articles, and everyone has a picture of someone yawning.
[17:31] You're yawning even more.
[17:33] Yeah.
[17:34] Well, I'm just trying to fit in.
[17:35] The thought of yawning induces yawning, according to one of these sites.
[17:39] It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
[17:44] Well, this is one of those where I feel dumber now that we've asked the question.
[17:49] You've expanded your mind.
[17:51] Have I, though?
[17:53] No, I don't think so.
[17:55] Maybe.
[17:58] You're so positive, Joey.
[17:59] You've opened your mind to what the possibilities may be.
[18:06] I've opened my mouth to a yawn.
[18:09] You know, and actually, thinking about this, all the people that listen to this
[18:12] under Googables are now yawning, probably.
[18:15] That's right.
[18:16] You know, if you're listening to this show to help you go to sleep,
[18:19] then this is probably a really good one.
[18:21] Nailed it.
[18:22] Yeah.
[18:23] Nailed it.
[18:26] I did have a few friends have told me that before.
[18:28] They don't listen to, you know, they don't watch basketball.
[18:31] They would listen to the show and they would use it to go to sleep.
[18:36] It's your soothing voice, Joey.
[18:41] I don't know what it is, but...
[18:44] Wake up, bad words!
[18:51] Fantastic.
[18:52] Siamese fighting fish can yawn.
[18:58] Ooh.
[19:02] I dig it.
[19:03] Penguins?
[19:04] This is wild.
[19:06] You opened a whole new world to us, Coalson.
[19:12] And I can tell you for sure that dogs have made me yawn before.
[19:16] And cats made me yawn.
[19:19] Hmm.
[19:20] Cats are always yawning.
[19:21] My cats are.
[19:24] They sleep like 20 hours a day, so...
[19:28] They wake up to yawn, they look at me, and then they go back to sleep.
[19:32] Do you think that players on the Wizards, or when he was on our team, yawn a lot more,
[19:40] because yawning is on their team?
[19:43] It's me.
[19:45] Every time they say his names.
[19:47] I love bad puns.