Do Hands Speak Louder Than Words?

Gestures may be as important as voices when communicating, says research.

ByABC News
December 29, 2009, 3:54 PM

Jan. 13, 2010 — -- It's an old bromide, but some folks probably couldn't talk if you tied their hands behind their back. Gesticulating is sort of an international language in that most of us talk with our hands as much as our voices.

And it turns out that's a good thing, according to new research from Colgate University, published in the current issue of Psychological Science. Psychologist Spencer D. Kelly of Colgate and colleagues at Radboud University in The Netherlands have found that gestures and the spoken word are so mutually interdependent that "gesture and speech are actually part and parcel of language -- that is, they together constitute language."

The research also shows that if the gesture matches the words (as in showing a chopping action while discussing chopping vegetables) the message is more quickly, and more accurately, understood than if the gesture doesn't match the words (twisting instead of chopping, for example.)

In other words, what you "say" with your hands is as important as what you say with your mouth.

OK, don't we always match our words with our gestures? Not always, according to the researchers who cite a much-watched video clip -- "number two on David Letterman's Top 10 George W. Bush moments." This Bushism, as it has become known, shows the president saying, "The left hand now knows what the right hand is doing."

Unfortunately, the president raised the right hand when referring to the left hand, and the left hand when referring to the right hand. That "incongruent gesture," according to this research, should make it more difficult for viewers to understand what the president was saying. However, proving that was beyond the scope of the research.

Seventy college students participated in two studies aimed at showing whether our gestures really matter. Each participant was shown a number of videos depicting specific actions, like chopping vegetables, accompanied by an audible description of the act. Sometimes, though, instead of showing chopping, the video showed twisting, or some other action that did not mimic the sound track, and the participants were asked to determine if the action matched the words.