Stories of gesture and sign language, HCI, perception and robots
Boy, I have been looking for this cartoon for two and a half years (off and on, that is, see here). So, a big thanks to diamond-blade for pointing out the link.
It was the Garfield daily comic from February 27, 2005 (source)
The reason why I like this comic so much (besides my general fascination for [...]
I am going to try and coin some definitions regarding gestures.
A gesture is any act, except speech, by which we intend to communicate something beyond the act itself
This definition includes all normal gestures, that have meaning (the message that was communicated intentionally) because of cultural conventions (including languages) or iconicity, and all such acts (like [...]
Sometimes I am such a proud daddy. The other day my little boy Rik, age 2, contributed to science with the following insightful analysis:
Scene: The Kitchen. Dad is clearing off the table. Enter Rik holding his big cuddly Snoopy dog by his hands. Rik: “Daddy?” [holds up Snoopy for inspection] Dad: “Yes?” Rik: “Snoopy has [...]
Here is a nice Garfield comic (always a good source for gestures, see here and here). It illustrates how a bit of fidgeting (thoughtful lip-touching) can be turned into a pose. Suddenly Jon displays a gesture of thoughtfulness instead of actually being lost in thought.
source
Not a few scientists and/or psychologists are quite excited by the discovery of mirror neurons. What is a mirror neuron? A mirror neuron fires both when you perform an action and when you observe the same action performed by another. The neuron “mirrors” the behavior of others, as though you were acting yourself. Why do [...]
A wrote about the gestures I saw Garfield (and Jon) make in six months of their comic a while ago. It is now the single most popular page on this site. So, I decided to browse the ones from April 2006 to now as well. (done till May 27)
Garfield:
‘Real’ Pointing point-caught-in-action point-rude point-focus-attention
Index-finger-up point-index-up-attention 2 [...]
I browsed through half a year of daily Garfield comics (20 April 2006 - 20 Sep 2005) to mark the gestures they feature. It was a fun and interesting exercise. I know of no comic where the gestures are so true to life.
Source Garfield.com
Index-finger-up Making a Point 2 3 4 Getting the point [...]
My Del.icio.us Links Books in My Library