Fluid and precise gestures improve comprehension by 60 percent
Summary
- Fluid and precise gestures improve comprehension by 60 percent
Details
- Some gestures carry 400% more info.
- Move with intention, without hesitation, stalling or jerkiness.
- clear thought leads to clear action
References
Quotes
There are two important cues we can learn from Konnikova. The first is the importance of fluidity and precision of movement. Powerful and confident people don’t waste energy on purposeless movement. They move with intention. They don’t hesitate. They don’t stall. They aren’t jerky. They know exactly what they want. People with clear thought take clear action. Researchers have found this to be true beyond the poker table as well.
Researchers found that purposeful, confident gestures improve comprehension by 60 percent. And some gestures are so powerful that they carry 400 percent more information! Gestures can convey importance, size, emotion, the direction of the conversation, and needs.
My team and I coded hundreds of hours of TED Talks looking for patterns. We wanted to know if there were any nonverbal differences between the most and least viewed TED Talks.
We found that hand gestures were key. The more popular TED Talkers used more hand gestures overall: an average of 465 gestures in eighteen minutes compared to 272 gestures by the less popular TED Talkers.
Second, we noticed that the more popular TED Talkers used explanatory gestures to help get their message across clearly. Here were the most common explanatory gestures you can use as well:
- Numbers: Any time someone mentioned a number, they nonverbally emphasized it by showing it on their hand.
- Big or Small: We also noticed that TED Talkers helped their audience understand the size or importance of something with their gestures. If something was small or no big deal, they held up their fingers only an inch apart to emphasize just how small. If something was really important, they held their hands as if they were holding a beach ball.
- Me vs. You: Really powerful speakers use their gestures to help you keep pace with their content. When they speak about their opinion or something personal, they often gesture toward themselves, sometimes even touching their own heart. or speaking about a call to action, they gesture toward the audience.