This article is about an investigation about contagious yawning. A group of scientist made an study called No Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise,Geochelone carbonaria.
-Objectives of the study: discriminate between the possible mechanisms controlling contagious yawning by asking whether contagious yawning is present in a species that is unlikely to show empathy or nonconscious mimicry: the redfooted tortoise, G carbonaria.
-Why they choose these animals? : Because tortoises have not been known to mimic each other, but sometimes respond to things they see around them. Besides, tortoises had never previously been involved in a contagious yawning task or any similar experiment.
-First step of the experiment: the researchers pick one of the seven tortoises that they choose to do the experiment and trained her to open her mouth whenever they waved a little red square near her head. This took six months, and the resulting behaviour appeared highly similar to a naturally occurring tortoise yawn.
-Next steps of the experiment:
a) The other tortoises watched as the trained tortoise yawned a single time.
b) Trained tortoise yawned several times in succession.
c) The observer tortoises watched videos of a tortoise yawning and not yawning.
-Conclusions: The scientists conclude with the suggestion that "tortoises do not yawn in a contagious manner".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/02/improbable-research-yawning-contagious-tortoise
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