Hand gesture production and gestural co- activation

Abstract: The present paper studies the hand gesture production in number and type of two Cuban participants and a Swedish one. The first time encounters between the two Cubans, and between one Cuban and the Swede were filmed. The interactions lasted around 7 and 10 minutes, respectively. The hand gestures of all participants were annotated for each video, as well as their gestural co-activation (including all parts of the body, not only the hands). The results showed that the Cuban participants produced a remarkable larger amount of hand gestures than the Swedish participant. There were more similarities than differences in the amount and type of gestures produced by the Cubans, and more differences than similarities between them and the Swede. When it comes to gestural co-activation, participants co-activated almost the same amount of time as their interlocutor in each video. However, the Swedish participant did more reformulations than repetitions, while the Cubans did more of the later.