Using hand gestures when we talk influences what others hear

Making simple up and down hand movements while speaking may influence the way people hear what you are saying. We often use meaningless movements, such as flicking or waving our hands, known as beat gestures when speaking face-to-face. These typically align with prominent words in speech. "Politicians use these gestures all the time to get their message across," says Hans Rutger Bosker at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Bosker and his colleagues tested how important these movements are in influencing sound recognition.