A study has found that these simple movements give listeners a visual link that psychologists describe as facilitating the understanding of the message. If you have ever seen someone explain something with such masterful hand movements that it seems as if they are landing a plane, you might think that it is a bit of an exaggeration. Random waving, distracting fidgeting, or vague air movements offer no benefit and may only distract the speaker. Initial tests show that a five-minute training session can improve their public speaking skills. The summary of the study is very simple: gestures are only useful if they actually show the thing being described. The researchers suggest that people can be trained to use gestures more effectively, as if they were learning a second language. But science indicates that these movements actually affect the persuasiveness of the speech. They are 'illustrators', those movements that mimic shape, direction, or distance, and help your brain visualize what is being said. Science says that these simple hand movements can strangely make you more persuasive. Imagine spreading your palms to show size, or joining your hands when describing a relationship between ideas, or drawing an invisible zigzag when talking about a market that 'fluctuates up and down'. We have all met people whose presentations were easy to remember, but whose hand movements could convince you of bold ideas. A new study published in a marketing research journal analyzed thousands of lectures and compared them to controlled experiments to find out why some speakers seem clearer than others. According to the research, people seem more efficient, cohesive, and convincing when their hand movements match the idea they are explaining, according to the ScienceAlert website. This is not just randomly waving your arms. Frankly, this is true to life. This pattern also continued in the experiments, where 1600 participants rated speakers who used purposeful gestures as clearer and more convincing. But not all hand movements are equal. According to the research team, this ease translates into higher ratings of effectiveness. To measure this, the researchers used artificial intelligence tools to analyze over 200,000 video clips from more than 2,000 lectures and found that speakers who used more illustrative gestures consistently received higher ratings from the audience.
