The linked website has 9 hand gestures that speakers use during the delivery of their speeches. My idea is only to extend this -- to make it a YouTube-like database and editing package that gives simply the capability to upload a short video clip, add visual annotations to mark the gesticulations, and a search capability. Although this is not much of an idea in and of itself, I need for something like this to exist, so am submitting it here for fear that the people who created that website, since it is so small, will just let it go and not build it.

This kind of site would be a repository for surreptitious clips of your favorite quirky professor, your angry boyfriend, annoying politicians, talk show hosts, etc. it would be a place to make people conscious of the unconscious gestural communication they are using.

It would also be good for catching people gesturing one thing while saying another. A haven for Body language interpreters.
-- JesusHChrist, Jan 26 2014

Critical Hand Gestures http://criticalhandgestures.tumblr.com
[JesusHChrist, Jan 26 2014]

Deaf sign language books exist. You could borrow illustrations and modify.

Some facial expression like the flinch are hardwired. I wonder if some hand gesture are universal. Maybe even Goodall's chimps.
-- popbottle, Jan 27 2014


This is good.
I get a kick out of watching the cycles of hand gestures in political speeches. No matter how hard the best Toast-Master graduate tries to randomize their memorized gestural repertoire... their hands still speak volumes.

When gestural recognition tech becomes more common place I recon we'll see a lot more talking heads.

There is a neat anti-theft video program which monitors behaviour for a time and then highlights abnormal activity, so I would imagine that databases almost exactly like the one you propose already run in places like casinos, embassies, prisons, military bases... etc.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jan 27 2014


Hand gestures are extremely not universal, so this would be useful, a first on halfbakery.

For example in the UK making the two-fingered peace sign with the palm held towards you is a sign of respect and on any trip to the UK do it whenever you feel like it's appropriate...policemen, particularly appreciate this sign of support as it's a pretty tough job...
-- not_morrison_rm, Jan 29 2014


//Hand gestures are extremely not universal//

Are they though?
For learned gestures you are surely right, but only those movements made consciously. Unconscious reflex motions are hardwired as far as I can tell.

You'd have to be pretty zen to keep control of your own blink-rate/ eyebrow-tic/ finger twitch reaction to what you are experiencing.
Any good poker player can see your tells given enough time.

Talkin-monkeys are talking-monkeys when it comes to tells. Cultural flourishes are easily seen through.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jan 30 2014


I would agree that some are universal twitch blink rate or so, but some are not.

For instance, the Japanese "come here" is the western "go away" and the ones is Egypt are pretty impenetrable.

Examples, miming writing on the palm of the left hand (held upright and towards the person being mimed at). Or palm held horizontally hand open, bring all fingers and the thumb together, thumb on middle finger, lower the hand, open the fingers a bit, then repeat.

One of those is " give me some money please" and the other is "don't rush me"...
-- not_morrison_rm, Jan 31 2014


Yeah, maybe I'm over thinking it. The idea specifies hand gestures and those are quite different from emotional face and body cues which cross cultural boundaries. It's cool here in Canada, you don't always get to experience the nuances of belonging to cultures than your own, but those little gestures that are shared without thinking stand out like sore thumbs.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 01 2014


//Yeah, maybe I'm over thinking it.

Well..just that this idea is "a database of hand gestures"...

Anyway, doing the 'thumbs up' sign in Israel, flicking one side of the neck with the index finger in Russian cultures...

There's an awful lot of hand gestures which are not universal and very, very difficult to guess.
-- not_morrison_rm, Feb 01 2014



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