Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond

Robert R. Provine

Published by Harvard University Press 2012

Curious Behavior

Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond

Robert R. Provine

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674067226

Overview
Contents

About this book

Robert Provine boldly goes where other scientists seldom tread—in search of hiccups, coughs, yawns, sneezes, and other lowly, undignified human behaviors. Upon investigation, these instinctive acts bear the imprint of our evolutionary origins and can be uniquely valuable tools for understanding how the human brain works and what makes us different from other species.

Many activities showcased in Curious Behavior are contagious, but none surpasses yawning in this regard—just reading the word can make one succumb. Though we often take it as a sign of sleepiness or boredom, yawning holds clues to the development of our sociality and ability to empathize with others. Its inescapable transmission reminds us that we are sometimes unaware, neurologically programmed beasts of the herd. Other neglected behaviors yield similar revelations. Tickling, we learn, may be the key to programming personhood into robots. Coughing comes in musical, medical, and social varieties. Farting and belching have import for the evolution of human speech. And prenatal behavior is offered as the strangest exhibit of all, defying postnatal logic in every way. Our earthiest acts define Homo sapiens as much as language, bipedalism, tool use, and other more studied characteristics.

As Provine guides us through peculiarities right under our noses, he beckons us to follow with self-experiments: tickling our own feet, keeping a log of when we laugh, and attempting to suppress yawns and sneezes. Such humble investigations provide fodder for grade school science projects as well as doctoral dissertations. Small Science can yield big rewards.

Author / Editor information

Robert R. Provine is Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 yawning Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	12
2 laughing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	39
3 vocal crying Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
4 emotional tearing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
5 whites of the eyes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
6 coughing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	104
7 sneezing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	116
8 hiccupping Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
9 vomiting and nausea Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
10 tickling Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	164
11 itching and scratching Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	176
12 farting and belching Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
13 prenatal behavior Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
APPENDIX: the behavioral keyboard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217
notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
references Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: Academics, Students, Libraries, Institutes
Pages
- Main content: 246
Illustrations
- Other: 27 line illustrations

eBook

Published: August 31, 2012
ISBN: 9780674067226