The surprising origins of talking with your hands | Rebecca Kleinberger | TEDxBoston

The voice helps us connect with others, forge bonds, and foster relationships. But the voice also creates connections inside our own body and, in particular, shares an ancestral bond with our hands. Dr. Rébecca Kleinberger reveals the many strings that tie hands and voice together from fine dexterity, memory, motor cortex, and the origin of language. Throughout this journey, we explore questions such as: do animals have a dominant hand? What do weightlifters, babies, and salamanders have in common? Or what does the inner voice of deaf people feels like? And how we can use our voice to touch people. Rebecca Kleinberger is the mother of hedgehogs and a PhD candidate doing research at the MIT Media Lab. Her work mixes science, engineering, design and art to explore ways to craft experiences for self-reflection and human connection. As part of the Opera of the Future group at the MIT Media Lab, she creates unique experiences to help people connect with themselves and with others. She accomplishes this using approaches that include virtual reality, rapid prototyping, deep learning, real-time digital signal processing, lasers, wearable technologies and robotics.

Through 5 years of work on self-reflection technologies, Rebecca has developed unique expertise on the human voice as a means of expression, both to others and within ourselves. Her research spans a wide range of fields, including neurology, human-computer interaction, psychology, cognitive sciences, physics, biology, clinical research, linguistics, communication theory and assistive technologies. This broad range of work has enabled her to create tools and experiences that help people discover more about themselves through the uniqueness and expressivity of their own voice.

Rebecca's work was used for a Financial Times magazine cover and has been shown at a wide range of events and venues including, the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, Le Laboratoire in Paris, Siggraph Art exhibition in Los Angeles, “Hacking Consciousness” at Harvard divinity school, and EMF camp in the UK. She has collaborated with Microsoft Research UK and the Google Magenta team and has presented her research at a host of international conferences. Working with Tod Machover’s team, her research has also been used outside of the MIT Media Labs as part of live shows and novel esthetic experiences at Maison Symphonique de Montreal, the Luzern Festival in Switzerland, and the Winspear Opera House in Dallas.

[xHTxRaptorF]

As someone who is deaf in one ear, I literally cannot stop myself from talking with my hands.

[e.graceoldstoneroses]

I am a singer and a dancer and I frequently use my hand when I do both. I frequently recall bringing people to tears (in a good way) with the power of my voice, and my hands frequently get involved.

[vincec.]

She has a captivating voice and I love her accent!❤ She's a great speaker.

[rukathehamsteratwork]

I found this video very interesting. Sometimes I tap my right hand gently by my left hand and do the same thing to my left hand by the other hand to express my gratitude to my body before going to sleep at night. (I’m on my way to work now and I tend to forget to “have conversations” with my body in the busy seasons like now.)

[oshunisis]

Beautiful... our voice express our emotions in which is tied with our expression of our hand movements
It's all an art .🤎🙏🤎

[mr.c]

The world would be a better place if none of us could talk.

[e.graceoldstoneroses]

Thank you (right hand to heart). I have often joked that Hillbillies are Italian in the way they/we use their/our hands when they/we speak, because we all use our hands as we speak. But this has shown me that we speak with our hands!

[bukurie]

Thank you! NICE for professionist of art and every day to us happen...❤😍👍

[Avtovaz]

loverly words, movents... such a nice woman!

[RealityVision]

Miracle happens daily in life, it's our perception decides it's a miracle or not, getting a seat on a crowded bus is a miracle, people think rarest things are called miracles, but actually miracle means getting the right thing, at the right time, at the right place. Experience your miracles and enjoy your life 😃 Have a nice day 😊

[jmal]

very interesting and articulate. thank you

[darkhorseman]

I read a study that seemed to indicate Narcissists and Psychopaths are more likely to talk with their hands.

Psychopaths lean in while talking with their hands, Narcissists have exaggerated hand signals.

[aspiretoinspire]

There are many stereotypes related to talking using hands, and should be stopped. You are always talking with your hands. Unfortunately, your hands might be saying the wrong things. According to a study published in the Leadership & Organization Development Journal: If you don't use your hands when presenting, or if you use awkward hand movements, your audience will label you as cold and aloof.🥰🥰🥰

[harrypearle]

RAPPORT is a French derived word, I think. We have problems in political debate, now.
No one wants to be told them are wrong, or foolish, or dishonest, but we need to know.
"Words from the heart, enter the hears" (Jewish saying)
Has Rebecca considered writing a book, perhaps with others, on this key subject?

[mikemccarthy]

I’d refer you to “The origins of ‘talking with our hands’ from our evolutionary past” in Psychology Today, except you haven’t written it yet…

[luked]

Was literally just wondering about this today

[rebecca-borg]

What does it say about me, in terms of evolution/development/dexterity, when I miss my mouth while eating? ;-)

[Exodus.Pi]

Oh I thought of some funny (to me) trolls. How about "to let her know it could happen."?