Most previous studies suggest diminished susceptibility to contagious yawning in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, it could be driven by their atypical attention to the face. To test this hypothesis, children with ASD and typically developing (TD) children were shown yawning and control movies. To ensure participants' attention to the face, an eye tracker controlled the onset of the yawning and control stimuli. Results demonstrated that both TD children and children with ASD yawned more frequently when they watched the yawning stimuli than the control stimuli. It is suggested therefore that the absence of contagious yawning in children with ASD, as reported in previous studies, might relate to their weaker tendency to spontaneously attend to others' faces. 1. Introduction Yawning is widespread among vertebrate species, including a wide range of mammals [1]. In humans, yawning is detectable even in the foetus [2]. The function of yawning is still unclear, but a recent theory highlighted that it may have a communicative function [3]. This hypothesis suggests that yawning is a nonverbal form of communication that synchronizes the behavior of a group [4–7]. It has been suggested that yawning transmits physiological and psychological states, such as drowsiness [8, 9], boredom [10], hunger, and mild psychological stress [7], to other members of the group. Among the evidence that supports this theory, studies of contagious yawning have attracted the most attention in recent years. Contagious yawning, in which observation of another’s yawn induces yawning behaviour in the observer, is a well-documented phenomenon. In humans, contagious yawning can be elicited by viewing or hearing others’ yawning or imagining yawning (e.g., [5, 11–14]). During the course of development, contagious yawning can be reliably observed by around 4 to 6 years of age [15, 16] but might not be present in younger infants and toddlers [17]. The presence of contagious yawning has also been reported in several nonhuman animals (e.g., [18–20]). Several neuroimaging studies have been conducted to investigate the cortical and subcortical structures relevant to the contagious yawning [21–24], but the results are inconsistent. This is possibly due to differences in the yawning stimuli and/or control stimuli used for recording [25]. To date, three independent studies have consistently demonstrated the absence of contagious yawning in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a developmental disorder with profound impairments in social interaction and communication
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