[Source:  Science Daily]

Gesturing with the hands while speaking is a common human behavior, but no one knows why we do it. Now, a group of researchers reports that gesturing adds emphasis to speech — but not in the way researchers had thought.

Gesturing while speaking, or “talking with your hands,” is common around the world. Many communications researchers believe that gesturing is either done to emphasize important points, or to elucidate specific ideas (think of this as the “drawing in the air” hypothesis). But there are other possibilities. For example, it could be that gesturing, by altering the size and shape of the chest, lungs and vocal muscles, affects the sound of a person’s speech.

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