1. A Neural Basis for Contagious Yawning
Beverley J. Brown, Soyoung Kim, Hannah Saunders, Clarissa Bachmann, Jessica Thompson, Danielle Ropar, Stephen R. Jackson, Georgina M. Jackson 
Current Biology 
Volume 27, Issue 17, Pages e2 (September 2017)
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2. Figure 1 Design of the Behavioral Task
(A) Participants viewed video clips that showed another individual yawning and, in four separate blocks, were instructed to either resist or permit themselves to yawn. Participants were videoed throughout and their yawns or stifled yawns were counted. During the latter two blocks (3 and 4), excitatory non-invasive electrical brain stimulation (anodal transcranial direct current stimulation [tDCS] or transcranial random noise stimulation [tRNS]) was delivered continuously to the cortical SMA region (contrasted with sham stimulation). To ensure that participants paid attention to the videos, they were required to answer a question (e.g., How many people in the videos were wearing glasses?) after each block.
(B) Illustration of the slider device used to continuously record each participant’s self-estimate of their current urge to yawn (see text for details).
(C) A representative example of one individual’s self-estimated urge to yawn across the four separate blocks of the behavioral task.
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3. Figure 2 Effect of Instruction
Illustration of the effect of instructing participants to either allow themselves to yawn or resist yawning on the mean number of full and stifled yawns observed. Error bars represent the SEM.
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4. Figure 3 Results of Stepwise Regression Analysis
(A) Scatterplot showing the association between 100-ms LICI values (x axis) and the total number of yawns (stifled + full) recorded in the allow condition (y axis). Note that a ratio value of <1 represents an inhibitory effect of the conditioning pulse (see text for details).
(B) Scatterplot showing the association between the resting motor threshold (RMT) (x axis) and the residual (i.e., unexplained by 100-ms LICI) variance in the total number of yawns recorded in the allow condition (y axis). Note that increased excitability is indexed by a lower RMT value.
(C) Scatterplot showing the association between 3-ms SICI values (x axis) and the residual (i.e., unexplained by 100-ms LICI + RMT) variance in the total number of yawns recorded in the allow condition (y axis). Note that a ratio value of <1 represents an inhibitory effect of the conditioning pulse (see text for details).
Current Biology  , e2DOI: ( /j.cub )
Copyright © 2017 The Authors Terms and Conditions