The Quest to Design the Perfect Yawn
All Things Considered, September 24, 2007 · Robert Provine had this deliciously dangerous idea.
The professor of psychology at the University of Maryland remembered the famous Monty Python sketch about a joke so funny it killed anyone who heard it; The British, naturally, wanted to use it against the Germans, the Germans visa versa, and both sides furiously pushed to develop the first "Doomsday Joke."
Professor Provine decided to do the same thing, but not with a joke. He proposed a Doomsday Yawn.
Provine, who has spent 20 years studying laughter and is the author of a well respected book why we laugh, is an expert on contagious behaviors. He decided, (since he has tenure and why not?) to try to design a yawn so powerful it would make everyone who saw it yawn back. That was his goal: the 100 percent contagious yawn.
The 55 Percent Barrier
A number of studies (including his own) found that a medley of ordinary yawns on video played to a classroom for five minutes would induce a responsive yawn in 55 percent of the audience. So that was his starting point: could he design a yawn powerful enough to move from a 55 percent response right up to Total Yawn-ness?
He tried.
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