LONDON - Dogs find human yawns contagious, suggesting they have a rudimentary capacity for empathy, British scientists said on Wednesday.
Although yawning is widespread in many animals, contagious yawning — a yawn triggered by seeing others yawning — has previously only been shown to occur in humans and chimpanzees.
It turns out, however, that man's best friend is highly sensitive to catching human yawns, with 72 percent of 29 dogs tested yawning after observing a person doing so.
Writing in the journal Biology Letters, Atsushi Senju and colleagues at London's Birkbeck College said this behavior showed dogs were skilled at reading human social cues and "may relate to their capacity for empathy."
The latest study demonstrates that dogs are not completely egocentric in their relationships with humans but possess "some low-level attending to what others feel," said Duke University anthropologist Brian Hare, who was not involved in the research.
"What's fascinating about this study is that you would not expect to find contagious yawning where you did not have self-awareness," he said.
The study of 29 dogs was conducted at the University of London in two stages. First, each dog watched a male researcher perform a large yawn, and then, in the control portion of the experiment, the dogs took turns observing the same researcher merely open his mouth.
Seventy-two percent, or 21 of the 29 dogs, yawned after watching the researcher yawn -- higher than the 45% to 60% rate reported in humans and the 33% rate reported in chimps.
No dogs yawned during the control portion of the experiment.
"Dogs are not only reading and responding but may be sharing feelings with humans," said Atsushi Senju, a research fellow at the University of London's Birkbeck College and one of the study authors.
