Understanding through Gesture

Language has a huge influence in determining how we interact with the world, but what about nonverbal behavior? When we speak and conceptualize the world in certain ways, we also structure our experience in order to make sense of and interact with it. In a novel 2017 study, Dr. Elizabeth Kirk and Dr. Carine Lewis…

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Searching for Universal Gestures

If there are universal emotions and expressions, does that mean there are universal gestures? This is exactly what Humintell’s Dr. David Matsumoto and Dr. Hyisung C. Hwang sought to answer in a 2012 study which sought to conduct a groundbreaking and comprehensive analysis on international differences in gestures. In order to answer this, they compiled…

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Why Try to Read Others?

At Humintell, we certainly talk a lot about reading other people’s emotions, but why is this such a big deal? One obvious answer is that it is just really fascinating psychology, but there are also relevant and practical reasons to improve your ability to read microexpressions and other nonverbal cues. Not only are they particularly…

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Nonverbal Cues in the 21st Century

The more impersonal communication gets, the more we remember the need for personal contact. While technology has many great features, it can often distill communication down to text messages, emails, or instant messages. These really can help manage spread out workforces or enable people to work from home, but they also prevent us from reading…

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