Gesture coding with the NGCS - ELAN system

The NGCS is based on neuroscience research. While previous gesture classification systems were developed on the basis of gesture observation and their categories were heuristical, the NGCS links the phenomenology to the neurobiology of gestures. The theoretical assumption behind the NGCS is that its main kinetic and functional gesture categories are differentially associated with specific cognitive (spatial cognition, language, praxis) and emotional functions. This implies that the different gesture categories are generated in different brain areas. Studies on split-brain patients in whom the production of specific gesture categories in the right and left hemispheres was examined [1-5] and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) studies [6] provide evidence that, indeed, the different gesture categories of the NGCS are generated in different brain regions. A second theoretical assumption behind the NGCS is that gestures are medium of communication and expression that conveys information per se. Again, this hypothesis is strongly supported by recent splitbrain research: in these subjects, a substantial amount of communicative gestures is generated in the separate right hemisphere, i.e., independently from left-hemispheric language production [1,5]. Thus, the NGCS coding is primarily performed without sound, and only after the gesture analysis has been accomplished, the relation to the verbal context can be analyzed. The NGCS gesture categories are defined by kinetic features only and not by interpretation of the verbal context.