Modeling Yawning Contagion as a Reaction-Diffusion System: Emergence of Turing Patterns in Behavioral Contagion
Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: When we see someone yawning, we often feel compelled to yawn ourselves -a phenomenon known as behavioral contagion in psychology.While one person's yawn acts as an activator that triggers yawns in others, we sometimes suppress the urge to yawn in situations like meetings, representing an inhibitor of this behavior.We formulated this yawning contagion as a reaction-diffusion phenomenon in an activator-inhibitor system and confirmed the emergence of Turing patterns.Our findings provide a theoretical framework for understanding and potentially controlling the spread of social behaviors in human populations.
Author: Yasuhiro Suzuki
Institution: Nagoya University
Language: English
Subfield: Computer Networks and Communications
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4409914124