Gesture

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For gestures in computing, see Gesture recognition. For other uses, see Gestures (disambiguation).
"Gestures" redirects here. For the rock group, see The Gestures.

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Military air marshallers use hand and body gestures to direct flight operations aboard aircraft carriers.

A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily

actions communicate particular messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech.
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.[1] 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 wordswhen 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.[2] In fact, language is thought by some scholars to have
evolved in Homo sapiens from an earlier system consisting of manual gestures.[3] The theory that
language evolved from manual gestures, termed Gestural Theory, dates back to the work of 18th-
century philosopher and priest Abb de Condillac, and has been revived by contemporary
anthropologist Gordon W. Hewes, in 1973, as part of a discussion on the origin of language.[4]