Cover: Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond, from Harvard University Press

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Curious Behavior

Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond

Robert R. Provine

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Product Details

PAPERBACK

$30.00 • £24.95 • €27.00

ISBN 9780674284135

Publication Date: 06/09/2014

288 pages

5-1/2 x 8-1/4 inches

27 line illustrations

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Introduction
1. Yawning
2. Laughing
3. Vocal Crying
4. Emotional Tearing
5. Whites of the Eyes
6. Coughing
7. Sneezing
8. Hiccupping
9. Vomiting and Nausea
10. Tickling
11. Itching and Scratching
12. Farting and Belching
13. Prenatal Behavior
Appendix: The Behavioral Keyboard
Notes
References
Acknowledgments
Index

Related Links

At the Chicago Tribune, read Robert Provine’s introduction to the science behind yawning, itching, hiccupping, and a host of other bodily issues
In the Washington Post, read about the neurological background behind ticklishness, and explore some fringe behaviors associated with tickling
Listen to Provine discuss the scientific underpinning behind “curious”—and contagious—behavior on CBC Radio’s Think About It, Science Friday, and WNYC’s The Takeaway, and with WYPR’s Dan Rodricks, WHYY’s Marty Moss-Coane, and WGN’s Mike McConnell
At PopSci, view a photo gallery of some of the various functions, discussed in Curious Behavior, that the human body regularly performs
In the Observer, read about why we laugh, at Brain Pickings, why we cry, at the New Yorker, why we yawn, and at Vox, why we hiccup!
At Salon, read an excerpt about some of the greatest “stupid human tricks” in modern memory
Read interviews with Provine at the NBC News blog The Body Odd and in the Boston Globe
At Slate, read how one parent of a child who loves to be tickled found Provine’s research illuminating

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Awards & Accolades

2012 PROSE Award, Biomedicine & Neuroscience Category, Association of American Publishers

A Library Journal Best Book of 2012

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