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Fatigue driving poses a serious threat to road safety, and research on how to effectively perceive driver fatigue and provide friendly reminders under the limited computing resources of vehicle-mounted platforms has attracted much attention. This study aims to address this limitation by developing edge computing-friendly operators and lightweight network structures. The proposed model, EMFastDet, enhances the efficiency and accuracy of driver fatigue detection. It integrates an attention module within edge computing-friendly operation blocks to capture features of the mouth and eyes. Anchor-free methods and a single detection head layer are employed for position and category predictions. The eye and mouth states in video streams are evaluated based on the metrics of Percentage of Eye Closure (PERCLOS) and Percentage of Yawning (POY). Extensive experiments were conducted using the YFDMS dataset collected in a real driving cabin environment with an infrared camera. Testing on the Qualcomm Snapdragon SA8155P chip, the DSP-accelerated EMFastDet 0.5 × version achieved an inference time of 3.02 ms and a quantized model size of 0.91 MB. The model achieved an mAP0.5 accuracy of 66.1 % , meeting the deployment requirements of in-vehicle platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of the International Arthurian Society is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: Electromyographic activity (EMG) of masticatory muscles during wakefulness is understudied. It is unclear if single channel ambulatory EMG devices are sensitive enough to detect masticatory muscle activity (MMA) during wakefulness. Objectives: To compare the MMA of various oral tasks recorded with a single channel EMG device ((Grindcare4‐datalogger Prototype device) (GC4‐β)) and a conventional EMG (cEMG) device. Methods: EMG activity of 30 standardised oral tasks was recorded unilaterally from the masseter and anterior temporalis muscle in 24 healthy volunteers using GC4‐β and a cEMG device. To compare the EMG data, signal‐to‐noise ratios (SNR) were calculated as a way to normalise EMG activity across tasks. Analysis of variance was used to compare the SNR between the devices, muscles and oral tasks. Results: SNR measured from GC4‐β was overall significantly higher than the cEMG device (p =.001). The SNR for maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) was significantly higher than all other tasks (p <.001). SNR for temporalis with GC4‐β was significantly higher for MVC, hard food, soft food, gum chewing (dominant side), rhythmic clenching and upper lip biting compared to the cEMG device (p <.021). The SNR for masseter with GC4‐β was significantly higher for hard food and gum chewing (dominant side), rhythmic clenching, rhythmic biting of an object and yawning compared to the cEMG device (p <.022). Conclusions: This study provides novel insight into the EMG patterns of numerous oral tasks enhancing knowledge of physiological differences between the masticatory muscles. Further, single channel EMG devices can effectively measure the EMG activity of various oral tasks during wakefulness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The transition from alertness to drowsiness can cause considerable changes in the respiratory system, providing an opportunity to detect driver drowsiness. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine which respiratory features indicate driver drowsiness and then use these features to classify the level of drowsiness and alertness. METHODS: Twenty male students (mean age 25.6±2.41 years) participated in the study using a driving simulator, and eight features, including expiration duration (ED), inspiration duration (ID), peak-to-peak amplitude (PA), inspiration-to-expiration time ratio (I/E ratio), driving, timing, respiration rate (RR), and yawning, were extracted from the respiratory signal generated by abdominal motions using a belt equipped with a force sensor. RESULTS: All eight features were statistically significant at the significance level of 0.05. Drowsiness can be detected using respiratory features with 88% accuracy, 82% precision, 86% recall, and an 90% F1 score. CONCLUSION: The findings of this study may be useful in the development of driver drowsiness monitoring systems based on less intrusive respiratory signal analysis, particularly for specific process automation applications when vehicle control is not in the hands of the driver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I present empirical arguments that bodily gestures may communicate a propositional meaning with assertoric force and trigger implicatures based on violations of Relation. Crucial in the analyses are Paul Grice's distinction between natural and non-natural meaning as well as Tim Wharton's extended argument that bodily gestures instantiate a third type of meaning defined by the spontaneous production of a gesture and the explicit exhibition of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, increasing attention has been devoted to exploring some aspects of yawning in non-human animals. With their chin red mark, bony paranasal swellings, male large brains and long canines, drills (Mandrillus leucophaeus) offer a robust model for testing hypotheses on the phenomenon. We identified two yawn variants (covered, YCT and uncovered teeth, YUCT) which differ in terms of recruitment of muscular action units (AUs). We tested the effects of several variables (sex, dominance rank, context) on the duration of the yawn and the probability of YCT or YUCT occurrence. We found that males performed longer and more YUCT than females. These findings support the Brain Cooling Hypothesis suggesting that those species showing large brains tend to display larger and longer yawns. We also tested the State Changing Hypothesis predicting the presence of a temporal association of yawning and ongoing behavioral transitions. A sequential analysis revealed that after 30 s following a yawn, drills were significantly more likely to change their behavioral state. Through the observation of yawning, conspecifics might gain knowledge of impending state changes. Seeing other's yawns increased the probability of a similar response in the observers, thus suggesting the presence of yawn contagion in drills. Although the dataset needs to be expanded, our findings indicate that yawning is variable in drills, it can be associated with subjects' state changes, and the imminent shifts can be perceived/processed by conspecifics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are several factors for vehicle accidents during driving such as drivers' negligence, drowsiness, and fatigue. These accidents can be avoided, if drivers are warned in time. Moreover, recent developments in computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) have helped to monitor drivers and alert them in case they are not concentrating on driving. The AI techniques can extract relevant features from expressions of driver's face, such as eye closure, yawning, and head movements to infer the level of sleepiness. In addition, they can acquire biological signals from the driver's body, and indications from the vehicle behavior. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the detection techniques of drowsiness and fatigue of drivers using machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL). The current techniques for this application are classified into four categories: image- or video-based analysis during the driving, biological signal analysis for drivers, vehicle movement analysis, and hybrid techniques. A review of supervised techniques is presented for detecting fatigue and drowsiness on different datasets, with a comparison of the various techniques in terms of pros and cons. Results are presented in terms of accuracy of detection for each technique. The results are discussed according to the recent problems and challenges in this field. The paper also highlights the applicability and reliability of the different techniques. Furthermore, some suggestions are presented for the future work in the field of driver drowsiness detection (DDD). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yawning is undeniably contagious and hard to resist. Interestingly, in our species, even the mere sound of a yawn can trigger this contagious response, especially when the yawner is someone familiar. Together with humans, one other mammal species is known to produce loud and distinct vocalisations while yawning, Theropithecus gelada. Geladas are known for their complex social interactions and rich vocal communication, making them intriguing subjects for studying yawning behaviour. To explore the contagious effect of yawn sounds on geladas, we conducted playback experiments in a zoo-housed colony with animals living in two groups. We exposed them to yawn sounds (Test) or affiliative grunts (Control) produced by males from either their own group or the other one. The results were remarkable, as simply hearing yawn sounds led to yawn contagion in geladas, with multiple responses observed when the yawns came from members of their own group. This finding adds a significant contribution to the research on mimicry and behavioural contagion in primates. Moreover, it raises intriguing questions about the involvement of sensory modalities beyond visual perception in these phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research paper, a comparative analysis of various image enhancements in the spatial domain techniques was performed based on three-dimensional image quality statistics such as mean squared error (MSE), peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), and structural similarity for measuring the image quality (SSIM). The conditions for choosing the best method are low mean square error (MSE) and high peak signal-to-noise ratio as well as the structural similarity for measuring the image quality. The pre-processed image was subjected to a classification task using a stepwise version of pre-trained deep convolutional neural networks. The problem of driver drowsiness caused by fatigue, lack of sleep, medication, etc. will have to be solved by improving the efficiency of driver drowsiness detection. Many traffic accidents are largely caused by drowsy drivers. Driver fatigue and distraction can cause a lack of alertness, which can lead to driver inattention. In this paper, we proposed a new deep-learning technique for driver drowsiness detection. Two methods using convolutional deep neural network and GoogleNet transfer learning are compared to achieve a better accuracy of 99%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been theorized that the contagion of behaviors may be related to social cognitive abilities, but empirical findings are inconsistent. We recorded young adults' behavioral expression of contagious yawning and contagious smiling to video stimuli and employed a multi-method assessment of sociocognitive abilities including self-reported internal experience of emotional contagion, self-reported trait empathy, accuracy on a theory of mind task, and observed helping behavior. Results revealed that contagious yawners reported increases in tiredness from pre- to post-video stimuli exposure, providing support for the internal experience of emotional contagion, and were more likely to provide help to the experimenter relative to non-contagious yawners. Contagious smilers showed stably high levels of self-reported happiness from pre- to post-video exposure, were more likely to provide help to the experimenter, and had increased accuracy on a theory of mind task relative to non-contagious smilers. There were no differences in self-reported trait empathy for contagious versus non-contagious yawners or smilers. Contagious yawning may be related to some basic (i.e., emotional contagion) and advanced (i.e., helping behavior) sociocognitive processes, whereas contagious smiling is related to some advanced sociocognitive processes (i.e., theory of mind and helping behavior). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Psychological Science is the property of Psychological Science Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In response to the problem of high computational and parameter requirements of fatigued-driving detection models, as well as weak facial-feature keypoint extraction capability, this paper proposes a lightweight and real-time fatigued-driving detection model based on an improved YOLOv5s and Attention Mesh 3D keypoint extraction method. The main strategies are as follows: (1) Using Shufflenetv2_BD to reconstruct the Backbone network to reduce parameter complexity and computational load. (2) Introducing and improving the fusion method of the Cross-scale Aggregation Module (CAM) between the Backbone and Neck networks to reduce information loss in shallow features of closed-eyes and closed-mouth categories. (3) Building a lightweight Context Information Fusion Module by combining the Efficient Multi-Scale Module (EAM) and Depthwise Over-Parameterized Convolution (DoConv) to enhance the Neck network's ability to extract facial features. (4) Redefining the loss function using Wise-IoU (WIoU) to accelerate model convergence. Finally, the fatigued-driving detection model is constructed by combining the classification detection results with the thresholds of continuous closed-eye frames, continuous yawning frames, and PERCLOS (Percentage of Eyelid Closure over the Pupil over Time) of eyes and mouth. Under the premise that the number of parameters and the size of the baseline model are reduced by 58% and 56.3%, respectively, and the floating point computation is only 5.9 GFLOPs, the average accuracy of the baseline model is increased by 1%, and the Fatigued-recognition rate is 96.3%, which proves that the proposed algorithm can achieve accurate and stable real-time detection while lightweight. It provides strong support for the lightweight deployment of vehicle terminals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accuracy and speed of facial keypoint detection are crucial factors for effectively extracting fatigue features, such as eye blinking and yawning. This paper focuses on the improvement and optimization of facial keypoint detection algorithms, presenting a facial keypoint detection method based on the Blaze_ghost network and providing more reliable support for facial fatigue analysis. Firstly, the Blaze_ghost network is designed as the backbone network with a deeper structure and more parameters to better capture facial detail features, improving the accuracy of keypoint localization. Secondly, HuberWingloss is designed as the loss function to further reduce the training difficulty of the model and enhance its generalization ability. Compared to traditional loss functions, HuberWingloss can reduce the interference of outliers (such as noise and occlusion) in model training, improve the model's robustness to complex situations, and further enhance the accuracy of keypoint detection. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves significant improvements in both the NME (Normal Mean Error) and FR (Failure Rate) evaluation metrics. Compared to traditional methods, the proposed model demonstrates a considerable improvement in keypoint localization accuracy while still maintaining high detection efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high-performance Driver State Monitoring (DSM) application for the detection of driver drowsiness is presented in this paper. The popular Ensemble of Regression Trees (ERTs) machine learning method has been employed for the alignment of 68 facial landmarks. Open-source implementation of ERTs for facial shape alignment has been ported to different platforms and adapted for the acceleration of the frame processing speed using reconfigurable hardware. Reducing the frame processing latency saves time that can be used to apply frame-to-frame facial shape coherency rules. False face detection and false shape estimations can be ignored for higher robustness and accuracy in the operation of the DSM application without sacrificing the frame processing rate that can reach 65 frames per second. The sensitivity and precision in yawning recognition can reach 93% and 97%, respectively. The implementation of the employed DSM algorithm in reconfigurable hardware is challenging since the kernel arguments require large data transfers and the degree of data reuse in the computational kernel is low. Hence, unconventional hardware acceleration techniques have been employed that can also be useful for the acceleration of several other machine learning applications that require large data transfers to their kernels with low reusability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contagious yawning (CY), which is yawning elicited by sensing another yawning, has been observed only in social species and is considered linked to high sociality. Although this idea—the social communication hypothesis—is supported by previous studies, investigating the occurrence of CY in various species remains necessary. We investigated the occurrence of CY in one of the most social canine species, the African painted dog (Lycaon pictus). We recorded 1387 yawn events from five pairs (10 individuals) in captivity. Temporal analysis showed that subsequent yawns occurred frequently within 15 s or 30 s after spontaneous yawns (SYs). SYs that were detectable by another individual (i.e., visible to the other individual or performed in close proximity) were more likely to elicit subsequent yawns by the other individual. However, the influence of contextual factors on CY differed according to the time window, implying that a conservative time window should be used to reduce overcounting of CY and misattribution of its determinants. The proportion of CY was positively related to time spent in physical proximity to another, a proxy for a social bond. Overall, our results provide the first evidence of CY in African painted dogs and further support the notion that such behavior is prevalent among social animals. They also strongly imply that an appropriate time window should be used to define yawn contagion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine Gregory of Nyssa's concept of phrenitis, as posited in the twelfth and thirteenth chapters of his De hominis opificio. Using as a starting point an episode where Gregory depicts himself taking care of a phrenitis patient, I compare the symptoms and the causes of phrenitis, as described by Gregory, with systematic discussions of the disease found in the extant medical sources of antiquity. The paper also investigates Gregory's causal explanation of the disease, posited in the twelfth chapter of his anthropological treatise, and demonstrates that Gregory considered as the seat of phrenitis the anatomical entity that is responsible for pleuritis. The paper concludes that Gregory most probably conflated and modified the explanations of two similar diseases in order to defend his views about the seat of the hegemonikon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioural contagion is a widespread phenomenon in animal species, which is thought to promote coordination and group cohesion. Among non-human primates, however, there is no evidence of behavioural contagion in Platyrrhines (i.e. primates from South and Central America) yet. Here, we investigated whether behavioural contagion is also present in this taxon, by assessing yawning and scratching contagion in a wild group (N = 49) of Geoffroy's spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi). We conducted focal samples to examine whether individuals observing the triggering event (i.e. a naturally occurring yawning or scratching event in the group) would be more likely to yawn or scratch in the following 3 min, as compared to individuals who did not observe the triggering event. We ran generalized linear mixed models using a Bayesian approach, and found that the probability of yawning and scratching was higher for individuals observing others yawning and scratching, respectively, as compared to individuals who did not observe such an event. Behavioural contagion did not vary depending on the observer's sex, kinship or relationship quality with the individual performing the triggering event. These findings provide the first evidence for yawning and scratching contagion in a wild group of spider monkeys, and importantly contribute to the debate about the evolutionary origins of behavioural contagion in primates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Contagious yawning (CY) has garnered considerable interest in the fields of psychology and animal behavior, particularly as it relates to the potential connection this response has with empathy or emotional contagion. Recent reports have explored this association through the study of interspecific CY, whereby the detection of yawns from one species trigger yawning in a different species. While the evidence for interspecific CY is robust, links to empathy have been inconsistent. Here, we sought to explore this relationship more explicitly in humans by assessing how interspecific CY in response to images of yawns from common household pets relates to individual differences in empathic concern. The results provide further evidence for interspecific CY in humans, but self-reported empathic concern was a negative predictor of this response. We also found no sex difference in interspecific CY, though when comparing the sexes across the CY conditions, women reported a higher frequency of yawning in response to dog yawns, and men reported a higher frequency of yawning in response to cat yawns. Overall, these findings do not support a strong connection between interspecific CY and empathy or emotional contagion. Interspecific contagious yawning (CY), whereby yawns from one species trigger yawning in different species, has now been reported across various taxa. This response to human yawning appears common among animals in captivity and has been interpreted as an empathic response towards human handlers/caregivers. A recent study found that humans also display interspecific CY, though this response was not modulated by proxies of empathic processing (i.e., phylogenetic relatedness or social closeness to the animals). Here, we explored this relationship more explicitly by assessing how interspecific CY to yawns from common household pets relates to self-reported empathic concern. Participants (N = 103) completed a survey measuring empathic concern and then reported on their yawning behavior following exposure to a control condition or yawning images either from domesticated cats or domesticated dogs. The results provide further evidence for interspecific CY in humans, but empathic concern was negatively predictive of this response. There was also no sex difference in interspecific CY, though when comparing the sexes across CY conditions, women reported a higher frequency of yawning in response to dog yawns, and men reported a higher frequency of yawning in response to cat yawns. Overall, these findings do not support a strong connection between interspecific CY and empathy or emotional contagion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The aim of this study is to investigate whether periodontology and cariology receive equal emphasis in dental education at two moments in time, thirteen years apart. Materials and Methods: An online search was conducted in Nov 2021 of all the dental schools in ten English‐language speaking countries (U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia) to identify departments/divisions in the disciplines of periodontology, cariology, and conservative/restorative/operative dentistry. The results were then compared against the findings of a similar investigation that was conducted from July to October 2008. Results: Of the 126 dental schools identified in 2021, information was available for 93 dental schools. Of these 93 schools, only 10 listed departments/divisions/disciplines of cariology, whereas 83 and 86 schools had listed periodontology and conservative/restorative/operative dentistry, respectively. Despite a doubling of the number of dental schools with a department/division/discipline of cariology from 2008 to 2021, the absolute gap in the number of departments/divisions/disciplines in the other two disciplines compared to cariology had widened during the thirteen years. In 2008, there were 70 more departments/divisions/disciplines in periodontology compared to cariology departments/divisions/disciplines. In 2021, there were 73 more departments/divisions/disciplines in periodontology. Additional information on research output was available for 90 dental schools in 2021, where 30 schools self‐identified as undertaking cariology research, whereas 68 and 47 schools undertook research in periodontology and conservative/restorative/operative dentistry, respectively. Conclusions: Dental education does not give equal emphasis to periodontology and cariology, and the discipline of cariology is grossly neglected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yawning is a ubiquitous stereotyped action in vertebrates. Yawning may induce behavioral state changes in animals through its arousal function, but no studies have explicitly examined this state-change hypothesis in fish. This study examined the state-change hypothesis in juvenile white-spotted char, Salvelinus leucomaenis. We observed 48 yawns in 23 out of 41 juveniles during 600 s of observation in the laboratory. Thirty-two of these yawns occurred while juveniles were stationary on the substrate, and they were concentrated immediately before the behavioral transition from stationary to active. These results support the state-change hypothesis. Sixteen yawns were observed after the behavioral transition, and their durations were longer than those before the transition. Although we suspected that this prolonged yawning after the transition would be associated with feeding and thermoregulation in the juveniles, we could not determine the cause of this difference. Further studies are needed to understand fish yawning and the origin of animal yawning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Oral behaviors represent a diverse array of habits beyond the physiological behaviors of the stomatognathic system. Objective: To describe the prevalence of different oral behaviors, as reported with the Oral Behavior Checklist (OBC‐21), in a convenience sample of patients attending an Italian university clinic for routine dental cares. Methods: In this study, charts of adult patients presenting to the dental department of a regional hospital in Trieste, Italy, from January 2018 and January 2019 were reviewed. Patients with complete files were retrieved, and those with orofacial pain complaints were excluded. OBC‐21 scores and grades (score of 0 corresponding to no risk, 1‐24 to low risk, and higher than 24 to high risk) were analyzed and stratified according to age and sex. Results: Data from a total of 1424 patients were reported. The overall mean OBC score was 13.3 ± 9.9, with 6.7% no‐risk grade, 79.6% low‐risk grade, and 13.7% high‐risk grade. In general, mean OBC scores decreased with increasing age. Females showed a higher frequency of high‐risk grade than males. Most frequent prevalent habits included yawning (73.1%), eating between meals (66.9%) and chewing food on one side only (63.3%). Other behaviors were also highly prevalent, including pressing, touching, or holding teeth together other than while eating (52.7%) and awake clenching (47.5%). Conclusion: A low‐risk grade of oral behaviors has been found to be frequent in our sample. Future studies are warranted to confirm these findings in larger, representative general populations and to assess if any of these habits are linked to negative effects on the stomatognathic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driver drowsiness is a significant factor in road crashes. However, existing solutions for driver drowsiness detection have major drawbacks of requiring special hardware, constrained recording conditions, and cannot handle the asynchronous and contradictory nature of multiple indicators. In view of this, we propose FDWatch, a novel drowsiness detection system that exploits the low-cost Photoplethysmogram (PPG) sensor and motion sensor integrated into wrist-worn devices. We design a set of novel algorithms to extract multiple drowsiness-related indicators covering major categories of human factors. In particular, we demonstrate that commodity PPG sensors can be utilized to detect yawning behavior; it contributes as an important indicator for drowsiness detection. The core of FDWatch is based on the Dempster-Shafer evidence theory. It considers different indicators as evidence describing the state of the driver from different angles. To make the extracted indicators applicable to Dempster-Shafer evidence theory, we employ backpropagation neural networks to obtain the basic probability assignment. Moreover, we propose a similarity-distance-based method to handle evidence conflicts. Extensive experiments with real-road driving data show that FDWatch can accurately detect driver drowsiness with a missing alarm rate of 3.57% and a false alarm rate of 3.68%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spontaneous mimicry appears fundamental to emotional perception and contagion, especially when it involves facial emotional expressions. Here we cover recent evidence on spontaneous mimicry from ethology, psychology and neuroscience, in non-human and human animals. We first consider how mimicry unfolds in non-human animals (particularly primates) and how it relates to emotional contagion. We focus on two forms of mimicry-related phenomena: facial mimicry and yawn contagion, which are largely conserved across mammals and useful to draw evolutionary scenarios. Next, we expand on the psychological evidence from humans that bears on current theoretical debates and also informs non-human animal research. Finally, we cover the neural bases of facial mimicry and yawn contagion. We move beyond the perception/expression/experience trichotomy and from the correlational to the causal evidence that links facial mimicry to emotional contagion by presenting evidence from neuroimaging, direct manipulation, neuro-stimulation and lesion studies. In conclusion, this review proposes a bottom-up, multidisciplinary approach to the study of spontaneous mimicry that accounts for the evolutionary continuity linking non-human and human animals.

While spontaneous yawning is common across all vertebrate classes, contagious yawning is less common and has been observed only in a few species of social animals. Interspecific contagious yawning in response to yawning by humans has been observed only by chimpanzees and dogs. After confirming additional occurrences of intraspecific contagious yawning in a group of captive African elephants previously studied, we further investigated the potential for the same group of elephants to engage in interspecific contagious yawning with familiar human handlers. Ten captive African elephants, most of whom had been previously studied, were observed over 13 nights for evidence of intraspecific contagious yawning. Seven of these elephants were also involved in trials where familiar handlers performed staged yawns, as well as trials with staged non-yawning gapes, or trials with no yawns or gapes. Incorporating previously collected contagious yawning data, we describe nine instances of intraspecific contagious yawning in the elephants. Three of the seven elephants yawned contagiously in response to humans during the interspecific yawning trials. This is the first report of interspecific contagious yawning by elephants in response to yawns by familiar humans.

Many social species, humans included, mimic emotional expressions, with important consequences for social bonding. Although humans increasingly interact via video calls, little is known about the effect of these online interactions on the mimicry of scratching and yawning, and their linkage with trust. The current study investigated whether mimicry and trust are affected by these new communication media. Using participant-confederate dyads (n = 27), we tested the mimicry of four behaviours across three different conditions: watching a pre-recorded video, online video call, and face-to-face. We measured mimicry of target behaviours frequently observed in emotional situations, yawn and scratch and control behaviours, lip-bite and face-touch. In addition, trust in the confederate was assessed via a trust game. Our study revealed that (i) mimicry and trust did not differ between face-to-face and video calls, but were significantly lower in the pre-recorded condition; and (ii) target behaviours were significantly more mimicked than the control behaviours. This negative relationship can possibly be explained by the negative connotation usually associated with the behaviours included in this study. Overall, this study showed that video calls might provide enough interaction cues for mimicry to occur in our student population and during interactions between strangers. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Face2face: advancing the science of social interaction'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of the nasal airflow inducing manoeuvre or 'polite yawn' technique in improving olfaction and quality of life in laryngectomised patients. Methods: Using a prospective study design, 42 patients scheduled to undergo laryngectomy at a tertiary care centre were subjected to olfaction testing before surgery and two weeks following the surgery. The nasal airflow inducing manoeuvre was taught, and the olfaction test was repeated with the patient performing the nasal airflow inducing manoeuvre. Quality of life was assessed using the Appetite, Hunger and Sensory Perception questionnaire with calculation of scores after the patient had learnt the nasal airflow inducing manoeuvre. Results: There was a significant reduction in the composite olfaction score, from a mean (standard deviation) baseline value of 4.01 (1.39) to 0.44 (0.51), two weeks after surgery (p < 0.001). After practising the nasal airflow inducing manoeuvre, the olfaction scores increased to 3.05 (1.32) (p < 0.001). Appetite, Hunger and Sensory Perception questionnaire scores ranged from 52 to 110 (normal range, 29–145), suggesting an improvement in the quality of life of patients. Conclusion: The nasal airflow inducing manoeuvre, an inexpensive, simple, patient-friendly manoeuvre, can be used in the olfaction rehabilitation of patients undergoing laryngectomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drowsy driving centric accidents are increasing at a frightening rate. Needless to say that the state-of-the-art technologies only have competencies in detecting drowsiness and alerting the drowsy driver. Existing methods have some remarkable hindrances in the domain of handling the distressed situation. Therefore these methodologies are ineffective to take additional safety measures if the driver is not proficient enough to operate the vehicle even though an alarm is given. Consequently, after evaluating the existing methodologies and the growth of autonomous vehicles, we have proposed an innovative approach that detects driver drowsiness in real-time. Our suggested model can locate a nearest available safe parking space and reach the parking location after initiating the autonomous driving mode to ensure safety. The proposed methodology has achieved an accuracy of 98%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to spontaneous yawning, yawn contagion occurs when yawning in a subject (responder) is elicited by the yawns of others (triggers). Yawn contagion has been associated with inter-individual synchronisation, activity coordination and possibly emotional contagion, based on the perception–action mechanism. We collected data on yawn contagion and grooming and verified—for the first time—yawn contagion presence and modulating factors in a wild strepsirhine. Specifically, we considered the diurnal lemur Indri indri (inhabiting Maromizaha rainforest, eastern Madagascar), which lives in socially cohesive family units. We recorded 613 yawning events involving 28 individuals and found that yawn contagion was present in the indris (with the best predictor for an individual to yawn at a given time of day was observing another group member yawning) and that it was positively influenced by grooming levels (but not by the spatial distance) between trigger and responder. Age and sex had no significant relationship with yawn contagion likelihood. Because yawn contagion has been found in different mammalian species regardless of their phylogenetic closeness, this study, reporting the phenomenon in a lemur species with highly cohesive behavioural pattern and able to emit coordinated vocal displays, adds a valuable piece to the investigation of the pressures that may have favoured yawning as a (possibly emotional) communicative cue during evolution. Significance statement: Yawn contagion is associated with inter-individual synchronisation and activity coordination. While this behaviour is often investigated in apes, its presence in lemurs is debated. Here, we explored presence and modulating factors of yawn contagion in Indri indri, a critically endangered primate living in small family units where individuals show coordinated circadian rhythms and a highly cohesive behavioural pattern. We first demonstrated the presence of yawn contagion in wild indris where, in line with the high degree of behavioural synchrony showed by the individuals within a group, it may possibly indicate a transmission of physiological states. We also demonstrated the association of contagion with grooming rates, but not with the spatial proximity between triggers and responders, nor with their sex and age, pointing at social closeness as the most likely modulating factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medically refractory seizures affect one-third of patients with epilepsy (PwE), for whom epilepsy surgery is considered. Video electroencephalography (vEEG) monitoring is a fundamental tool for pre-operative seizure localization. Facial and cranial myogenic artifacts can obscure vEEG findings, thus interfering with seizure localization. Studies have shown the beneficial effects of botulinum toxin type A (BTX-A) injection into cranial muscles for reducing myogenic artifacts. This longitudinal study aimed to assess the effects of BTX-A injection on these artifacts. Twenty-two patients with medically refractory hypermotor seizures with daily seizure frequency and undetermined epilepsy localization were included in this study and underwent Dysport® injection (200 units) into the frontotemporal region. vEEG recordings were performed at baseline (one week before the injection), and at three days and six days post-injection. Before and after the injection, the amplitudes of myogenic artifacts were compared during various states (ictal, blinking, chewing, bruxism, head lateralization, scowling, talking, and yawning). BTX-A injection significantly reduced the amplitudes of EEG myogenic artifacts, except during blinking (day three) and talking (days three and six). On day six, significant reduction in EEG myogenic artifacts were noted during blinking, chewing, and bruxism for the greatest number of patients (95.5%, 90.9%, 81.8%), while significant reductions in EEG myogenic artifacts during talking, head lateralization, and ictal phase were associated with the least number of patients (22.7%, 36.3%, and 40.9%). Therefore, BTX-A injection could be a convenient method for filtering myogenic contamination, improving EEG interpretation, and facilitating seizure localization in patients with medically refractory seizures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: Yawning is a stereotypical complex muscular movement and is commonly executed by most vertebrates. In seconds, the entire airway is fully dilated and surrounding muscles are powerfully stretched, most prominently around the pharynx. To date, yawning has been rarely studied, and as of yet there is no consensus on its main function. Material and methods: To investigate a mechanical airway function for yawning, a literature search was conducted to relate the frequency of yawning and obstructive airway conditions. Results: The results show that changes in obstructive airway conditions and alteration of the frequency of yawning are temporally related. Interpretation: These relationships, however, cannot be interpreted as causal, nor can they be extrapolated to explain the function of yawning. Yet airway management and yawning share many physiological characteristics. We therefore propose a novel hypotheses: yawning plays a significant role in airway physiology by muscle repositioning and widening the airway lumen, thereby securing long-term oxygenation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yawning is a complex behaviour linked to several physiological (e.g. drowsiness, arousal, thermoregulation) and social phenomena (e.g. yawn contagion). Being yawning an evolutionary well-conserved, fixed action pattern widespread in vertebrates, it is a valuable candidate to test hypotheses on its potential functions across the different taxa. The spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta), the most social and cooperative species of the Hyaenidae family, is a good model to test hypotheses on yawning correlates and significances. Through an accurate sequential analysis performed on a group of wild hyaenas, we found that yawning mainly occurred during an imminent behavioural state changing in both juveniles and adults and that seeing others' yawn elicited a mirror response in the receiver, thus demonstrating that yawn contagion is present in this species. These results taken together suggest that yawning is linked to a behavioural state change of the yawner and that such change is caught by the observers that engage in a motor resonance phenomenon, yawn contagion, possibly effective in anticipating yawners' motor actions. Although additional data are necessary to verify whether yawn contagion translates into subsequent motor convergence and alignment, our data suggest that both spontaneous and contagious yawning can be fundamental building blocks on the basis of animal synchronisation in highly social and cooperative species. Significant statement: Yawning is pervasive in many animal species, including humans. It is considered as a polyfunctional cue that has a role in regulating social interactions. While several studies focussed on yawning functions in primates, a little amount of effort was devoted to exploring this behaviour in social carnivores. We monitored a group of wild spotted hyaenas (Crocuta crocuta), which is one of the most cooperative carnivore species. In both immature and adult subjects, we found that a subject frequently changed its behavioural state after spontaneously yawning and that seeing others' yawn elicited a mirror response in the observer. Although additional data are necessary to verify whether yawn contagion translates into subsequent motor convergence and alignment, our data suggest that both spontaneous and contagious yawning can be fundamental building blocks on the basis of animal synchronisation in highly social and cooperative species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the factors that usually cause road accidents in the world is driver fatigue, which accumulates during the trip or is present even before it begins. One of the most common signs of fatigue or tiredness of a vehicle driver is yawning. The detection of signs of yawning in human behavior is potentially able to further characterize its state of fatigue. Computer image processing methods are actively used to detect the openness of the mouth and yawning for a person. However, this approach has many disadvantages, which include different environmental conditions and a variety of situational yawning options for different people. The paper presents a scheme of a detector for determining signs of yawning, which is focused on processing images of the driver’s face using data analysis methods, computer image processing, and a convolutional neural network model. The essence of the proposed method is to detect yawning in the driver’s behavior in the cabin of a vehicle based on the analysis of a sequence of images obtained from a video camera. It is shown that the driver’s yawning state is accompanied by a wide and prolonged openness of the mouth. Prolonged openness of the mouth signals the appearance of signs of yawning. A conceptual model for detecting the openness of the mouth for a vehicle driver is presented and a scheme for processing and labeling the YawDD and Kaggle Drowsiness Dataset datasets is developed. The developed convolutional neural network model showed an accuracy of 0.992 and recall of 0.871 on a test 10 % data set. The proposed scheme for detecting the yawning state has been validated on a test video subset extracted from the YawDD: Yawning Detection Dataset. This detection scheme successfully detected 124 yawns among all video files from the test dataset. The proportion of correctly classified objects is 98.2 % accuracy, precision is equal to 96.1 %, recall is 98.4 %, and F score is 97.3 % while detecting signs of yawning in driver behavior. Detecting signs of yawning in the driver’s behavior allows one to clarify information about the driver and thereby to increase the effectiveness of existing driver monitoring systems in the vehicle cabin, aimed at preventing and reducing the risk of road accidents. The proposed approach can be combined with other technologies for monitoring driver behavior when building an intelligent driver support system.

Multi-state driver monitoring is a key technique in building human-centric intelligent driving systems. This paper presents an integrated visual-based multi-state driver monitoring framework that incorporates head rotation, gaze, blinking, and yawning. To solve the challenge of head pose and gaze estimation, this paper proposes a unified network architecture that tackles these estimations as soft classification tasks. A feature decoupling module was developed to decouple the extracted features from different axis domains. Furthermore, a cascade cross-entropy was designed to restrict large deviations during the training phase, which was combined with the other features to form a heterogeneous loss function. In addition, gaze consistency was used to optimize its estimation, which also informed the model architecture design of the gaze estimation task. Finally, the proposed method was verified on several widely used benchmark datasets. Comprehensive experiments were conducted to evaluate the proposed method and the experimental results showed that the proposed method could achieve a state-of-the-art performance compared to other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The migraine premonitory phase is characterized in part by increased thirst, urination and yawning. Imaging studies show that the hypothalamus is activated in the premonitory phase. Stress is a well know migraine initiation factor which was demonstrated to engage dynorphin/kappa opioid receptors (KOR) signaling in several brain regions, including the hypothalamus. This study proposes the exploration of the possible link between hypothalamic KOR and migraine premonitory symptoms in rodent models. Methods: Rats were treated systemically with the KOR agonist U-69,593 followed by yawning and urination monitoring. Apomorphine, a dopamine D1/2 agonist, was used as a positive control for yawning behaviors. Urination and water consumption following systemic administration of U-69,593 was also assessed. To examine if KOR activation specifically in the hypothalamus can promote premonitory symptoms, AAV8-hSyn-DIO-hM4Di (Gi-DREADD)-mCherry viral vector was microinjected into the right arcuate nucleus (ARC) of female and male KORCRE or KORWT mice. Four weeks after the injection, clozapine N-oxide (CNO) was administered systemically followed by the assessment of urination, water consumption and tactile sensory response. Results: Systemic administration of U-69,593 increased urination but did not produce yawning in rats. Systemic KOR agonist also increased urination in mice as well as water consumption. Cell specific Gi-DREADD activation (i.e., inhibition through Gi-coupled signaling) of KORCRE neurons in the ARC also increased water consumption and the total volume of urine in mice but did not affect tactile sensory responses. Conclusion: Our studies in rodents identified the KOR in a hypothalamic region as a mechanism that promotes behaviors consistent with clinically-observed premonitory symptoms of migraine, including increased thirst and urination but not yawning. Importantly, these behaviors occurred in the absence of pain responses, consistent with the emergence of the premonitory phase before the headache phase. Early intervention for preventive treatment even before the headache phase may be achievable by targeting the hypothalamic KOR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its recent prominence as a rationale for the academic study of religion, Professor Wolfart shows both that "religious literacy" has been poorly defined and that little evidence has been adduced for its positive effects. Yet the institutional and social pressures that have led some to embrace religious literacy as a positive argument for the academic study of religion persist, and the essay offers no alternative conception of the broad goals towards which collegiate education about religion should be directed. It is worth considering, therefore, whether some of the flaws with religious literacy as an educational approach might be remedied. In particular, this response proposes that the yawning gap between the abstract goal and the fact that in the U.S. most undergraduates will take only a single course in the study poses a challenge of course design. Carefully designing courses for religious literacy might diminish the imprecision in the concept and provide more tangible evidence of what religiously literate students might be able to do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]