Ailsa Millen

Ailsa Millen

Ailsa Millen appears on this site as first author of the 2011 Biology Letters study of yawning in infants and preschool children.

Who they are

The work of Ailsa Millen reaches this site through the paper listed below. On this site the name is tied to Contagious Yawning.

Key papers

Millen, A. E., & Anderson, J. R. (2011). Neither infants nor toddlers catch yawns from their mothers. Biology Letters, 7(3), 440-442. What it reports: Parents logged their children's yawns for a week and reported no contagious yawns, and infants and toddlers shown yawning clips, including clips of their mothers, did not yawn in response.

Key ideas

Contagious Yawning: The tendency to yawn after seeing, or reading about, another person's yawn, strongest among people who are close.

Sources

  1. Millen, A. E., & Anderson, J. R. (2011). Neither infants nor toddlers catch yawns from their mothers. Biology Letters, 7(3), 440-442.