Categorical theory (e. g. Ekman, 1971) and dimensional theory (e. g. Russell, 1980) are popularly used to describe feelings and emotions. However these two theories have been largely ignored in gesture studies. One reason appears to be that the research has been based on of facial expressions and words, as such as not been applied to other studies.
This research examined the relationships between feelings and hand movements. 106 students (53 pairs) participated in the experiment, where they talked to each other about various emotional themes, and then filled in questionnaires on their feelings. Their conversations were videotaped. The cumulative duration of self-adaptors and gestures, as well as the velocity, size, smoothness and accent of the gestures was rated by 3 coders. The results indicated that some feelings do have an affect on self-adaptors and gestures, while other feelings, however, were different that the theoretical underpinnings would have suggested.
