Wim Pouw

Abstract Humans often vocalize while concurrently gesturing with their hands. Fluctuations in the intensity and tone of the voice have been shown to synchronize with gestural upper limb movement. This research provides direct evidence that interactions between arm movements and postural muscle activity cause these voicing fluctuations.

Abstract The gesture-speech physics theory suggests that there are biomechanical interactions of the voice with the whole body, driving speech to align fluctuations in loudness and F0 with upper-limb movement. This exploratory study offers a possible falsification of the gesture-speech physics theory, which would predict effects of upper-limb movement on voice as well as respiration. We therefore investigate co-movement expiration.

Abstract Humans use their voice concurrently with upper limb movements, known as hand gestures. Recently it has been shown that fluctuations in intensity and the tone of the human voice synchronizes with upper limb movement (including gesticulation). In this research direct evidence is provided that the voice changes with arm movements because it interacts with whole-body muscle activity (measured through surface EMG and postural measurements).