Measuring hand movements

Hand movements were classified into speech illustrators, body manipulators, and actions which convey precise symbolic information. The behavioral code noted whether the action involved the left, right, or both hands, and the manipulator code also included the part of the body manipulated. The application of this code to videotapes of conversations provided data to examine a number of methodological issues. Reliability was inspected in a number of ways; each showed high intercoder agreement. Little redundancy was found among the various hand measures, although scores for the frequency of an activity and for the duration of an activity were highly intercorrelated for most classes of hand actions. An economical method for coding hand activity was compared with the standard, more time-consuming method. Similar results were obtained, although the economical method appeared to be more vulnerable to measurement error.This research was supported by a grant from NIMH, MH 11976. The preparation of this report was supported by a grant from the Harry F. Guggenheim foundation.