How Do Gestures Shape Interpretation? An International Experiment on Social Images, Culture, and Standardization

Sep 18

3 min read

This project is part of the SMartS project, which promotes inquiry-based and interdisciplinary learning in schools (SMArtE method) and contributes to international research in art education.

INTRODUCTION

This international study explored the communicative and psychological power of gestures and asked whether some gestures that are widely present in contemporary society can produce similar interpretations among different people and across different cultures.

The project was inspired by Sergio Lombardo’s Gesti Tipici (Typical Gestures), a series of large black silhouettes based on political figures and media images. Lombardo investigated how certain body postures and gestures could convey authority, power, or other meanings even before a fully conscious interpretation took place.

Starting from this idea, students asked whether today’s political, social-media, and educational gestures can also produce relatively homogeneous responses, and whether their meaning changes when observed in different cultural contexts.

The experiment was carried out through an international collaboration between Mastromatteo Lower Secondary School in Palo del Colle, Italy, and Joaquim da Silva Peçanha School in Duque de Caxias, Brazil.

RESEARCH QUESTION

Do some contemporary gestures produce similar sensations and interpretations among different observers?

Can the same gesture be interpreted differently in different cultural contexts?

Does an unfamiliar, invented gesture generate more varied interpretations than socially recognizable gestures?

METHOD

Students worked in groups to identify gestures connected with politics, social media, and education. They then created large black silhouettes on cardboard, inspired by the visual language of Lombardo’s Gesti Tipici.

A fifth image represented an original invented gesture, created as a control stimulus.

The silhouettes removed faces, colours, and recognizable settings so that participants would focus mainly on the position of the body and hands.

The images were shown to participants in Italy and Brazil. For each image, participants selected and rated sensations such as confidence, empathy, respect, fear, coldness, energy, control, charm, and admiration. They were also asked an open question:

What does this gesture communicate to you?

RESULTS

Some gestures produced relatively consistent interpretations within the Italian sample. Certain images were mainly associated with ideas such as energy and confidence, fear and control, coldness, or exclusion and discrimination.

The invented control gesture produced much more heterogeneous responses. Some participants stated that they did not know or understand what the gesture communicated.

The comparison between Italy and Brazil revealed both similarities and differences. One gesture was interpreted in both contexts as suggesting calm or stopping, while other images produced more culturally differentiated responses.

For example, a gesture associated by several Italian participants with dictatorship, leadership, or authoritarian salutes generated more varied interpretations among the Brazilian participants, including dancing, amusement, intimidation, and pointing. Another image was frequently connected with discrimination or prejudice in the Italian sample, whereas Brazilian participants more often referred to bullying, confrontation, or judgment.

DISCUSSION

The findings suggest that gestures can become socially recognizable images capable of guiding interpretation, especially when they are repeatedly encountered in politics, media, school, or social networks.

At the same time, the cross-cultural comparison indicates that the meaning of a gesture is not completely fixed. The same visual stimulus can activate partly similar responses in different contexts while also being interpreted through different cultural experiences and shared images.

The control stimulus is particularly interesting. Because it did not appear to belong to an already shared visual repertoire, it generated more diverse and uncertain interpretations. This suggests that greater cultural familiarity may contribute to more predictable responses, whereas unfamiliar gestures may leave more space for individual interpretation.

CONCLUSION

This experiment suggests that gestures are not simply body movements: they can become social images associated with authority, fear, belonging, exclusion, confidence, or other meanings.

The comparison between Italian and Brazilian participants also indicates that some interpretations may be shared across contexts, while others appear more strongly connected with local cultural experience.

Through the SMArtE approach, students transformed gestures into experimental visual stimuli, collected both quantitative and qualitative data, and compared how the same images were interpreted in two countries.

The project shows how art can become a research tool for investigating not only perception, but also social influence, cultural interpretation, and the relationship between shared visual conventions and individual responses.

Explore more student projects based on the SMArtE method (click on the link):