I’m in the car with a friend. At a red light, a passenger in the next car taps on my friend’s window, indicating he’d like a word. My friend rolls down his window to discover that the stranger wants directions to Humayun’s Tomb. He also discovers that the stranger—while totally Indian to look at—speaks English ‘posh,’ as if he’s just stepped out of Gosford Park.
Without missing a beat, my friend proceeds to give him elaborate instructions—in Jeremy Irons-ese. The Brit accent is so authentic I actually turn to check that the speaker is the same person who was ‘talking like that, only’ to me just a few moments ago. Blimey, it is.
Yawning, giggling, even dancing—by now, we all know they’re infectious. But speaking with an accent? I can’t wait to get home and check my old copies of Science magazine to see if it has anything to say on the subject.
And what do you know—it does. It has heaps to say about all kinds of involuntary mimicking. The contagiousness of laughter, it seems, is the reason we hear those ridiculous laugh tracks on TV shows. Apparently, people don’t even need to hear the original joke to crack up; just listening to 20 seconds of (even fake) laughter is enough to make them start laughing or at least smiling.
Yawning too passes from one person to another in a domino effect. But the phenomenon goes beyond simple suggestibility, says science. Studies show that the phenomenon is related to our predisposition toward ‘empathy’—the ability to understand and connect with other people’s emotions. It may sound strange, but whether or not you’re susceptible to contagious yawning may actually be related to how empathetic you are to others. (Clearly, those attending a conference are exceedingly empathetic to each other, particularly after lunch).
More interestingly, I’m told, we’re not born with this sympathetic understanding. So though babies start yawning spontaneously even before they get out of the womb, children don’t show signs of contagious yawning until they are at least four years old. The lack of empathy is not just restricted to human children. Researchers say dogs too are vulnerable to yawn contagion—but only if they are over seven months old.
The oddest finding on contagious activities I find is related to the mobile phone. I don’t know who pay for studies like this but a University of Michigan team has reportedly found that people are twice as likely to pull out their phones to check for new text messages or e-mails if they’re with someone who has just done the same.
Which brings me to the reason why I started reading up on the matter in the first place: the accent copying. Scientists say human brains imitate the speech patterns of other people, even strangers, without meaning to because they want to “bond” with them; that the subconscious copying of an accent comes from an inbuilt urge of the brain to “empathize and affiliate”. That might explain why former England manager Steve McClaren started speaking with a Dutch accent while coaching the Netherlands’ football club FC Twente. But I still need to figure out who my friend thought he was “affiliating” with when his accent went from middle class to cut glass in the car the other afternoon.
shampa@newindianexpress.com
