Meaning attached to hand movements: gestures and self-touching

Abstract

The current study was focused on impressions of hand movements. A specific emphasis was placed on distinguishing two common types of hand actions: hand gestures and self-touching actions. Undergraduates (N=100) rated video-only segments of other encoders describing past affective experiences. Segments varied with respect to hand movements displayed: gestures (self-pointing, rhythmic motion of the hands or baton, shape or size motion, etc.), and self-touching (rubbing eye, scratching nose, fidgeting with hands, etc.). Raters also judged how calm, thoughtful, expressive, happy, and attentive encoders appeared in each segment. As expected participants accurately matched encoders' words with their hand movement at greater than chance expectations. Next, the accuracy of message decoding was greater for gesture movements compared to self-touching movements. Finally, as expected, participants highly rated gesture scenes with adjectives connoting a cognitive function ("thoughtful" and "attentive"); additionally, participants highly rated self touching scenes on adjectives connoting an emotional function ("calm" and "happy"). Discussion was focused on participants' perceptions of hand movements (gesture and self-touching actions) in contribution to accurate recognition of phrases actually uttered by encoders.