Empirical studies of Posture-Gesture Mergers

This study describes four experiments which support the hypothesis that Posture-Gesture Mergers (PGMs) accompany verbal expressions that are truthful, relaxed, sincere, or authentic. PGMs are defined as body movements which occur when a posture (full body movement) leads into a gesture (partial body movement) or vice versa. Proportion of PGMs to nonPGMs constituted the dependent variable. Three experiments manipulated situational conditions in order to affect PGMs. In the first study, PGM behavior was compared when subjects were instructed to lie vs. when they were instructed to tell the truth. In the second study, PGM behavior was compared when subjects were frustrated vs. not frustrated by an experimental task. In the third study, PGM behavior was studied after subjects underwent relaxation training. The fourth study assessed naturally occuring PGM rates in a debate tournament and showed that PGMs are positively correlated with a judge's ratings of contestants' relaxation, sincerity, and effectiveness. Implications of the research for Action Profiling, as well as dance, movement, and body therapy, are addressed.This work was supervised and written by the senior author. Each of the junior authors designed one experiment and collected data, as well as served as a judge for a second experiment.