| 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. |
