In summary, our study on the neural correlates of attentive
viewing of other persons’ yawns results in three main conclusions:
(i) STS activation appears to differentiate viewing of
stereotypical yawns from viewing of physically similar non-yawn
orofacial gestures, (ii) the absence of activation in Broca’s region
and its right-hemisphere homologue, important parts of the MNS,
in the Yawn–Control comparison speaks for the non-imitative
nature of the yawn contagion that can occur without detailed
action understanding, and (iii) the negative covariance between
the subjective yawn susceptibility and the differential amygdalar
activity (meaning that perceived contagiousness increases as
amygdalar activation decreases) suggests a relationship between
the effectiveness of yawn contagion and the face-processingrelated
emotional analysis during social interaction