Medical research

Gestures can improve understanding in language disorders

When words fail, gestures can help to get the message across—especially for people who have a language disorder. An international research team has now shown that listeners attend the gestures of people with aphasia more ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Five facts about Bell's palsy

No one's exactly sure what causes Bell's palsy, a condition that causes sudden facial weakness on one side of the face. But the symptoms are unmistakable. Once the weakness, or paralysis, sets in—usually on one side of ...

Neuroscience

Sensing signals in paralyzed muscles

For people with tetraplegia—a condition in which all four limbs have lost motor ability—regaining independence is a top priority. Although there is no cure for paralysis caused by neurological disorders, robotic arms ...

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Gesture

A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of speech or together and in parallel with spoken words. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or other parts of the body. Gestures differ from physical non-verbal communication that does not communicate specific messages, such as purely expressive displays, proxemics, or displays of joint attention. Gestures allow individuals to communicate a variety of feelings and thoughts, from contempt and hostility to approval and affection, often together with body language in addition to words when they speak.

Gesture processing takes place in areas of the brain such as Broca's and Wernicke's areas, which are used by speech and sign language.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA