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 ...

Neuroscience

Scientists unlock secret of how the brain encodes speech

People like the late Stephen Hawking can think about what they want to say, but are unable to speak because their muscles are paralyzed. In order to communicate, they can use devices that sense a person's eye or cheek movements ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

That new baby isn't imitating you

For decades, there have been studies suggesting that human babies are capable of imitating facial gestures, hand gestures, facial expressions, or vocal sounds right from their first weeks of life after birth. But, based on ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Seeing isn't required to gesture like a native speaker

People the world over gesture when they talk, and they tend to gesture in certain ways depending on the language they speak. Findings from a new study including blind and sighted participants suggest that these gestural variations ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Our head movements convey emotions

When people talk or sing, they often nod, tilt or bow their heads to reinforce verbal messages. But how effective are these head gestures at conveying emotions?

page 1 from 9

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