Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Emotional gestures in sport

  • Published:
Language Resources and Evaluation Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The paper presents a study about the gestures of athletes while reporting emotions. The study was aimed at singling out possible differences in gestural activity of athletes during the telling of their best and worst performances. To analyse the gestures a manual annotation scheme was adopted that classifies each gesture in terms of handshape, motoric structure, meaning, goal, and type. The annotation scheme allows to provide a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the athletes' gestures and consequently to put forward the hypothesis that the mental images expressed by the gestures performed while re-living positive and negative experience contain not only visual and propositional but also sensory-motor and emotional components.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Ahsen, A. (1984). ISM: The triple code model for imagery and psychopysiology. Journal of Mental Imagery, 8, 15–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Banse, R., & Sherer, K. R. (1996). Acoustic profiles in vocal emotion expression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 614–636.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beattie, G. (2003). Visible thought: The new psychology of body language. Hove: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler (1998). Psicologia e attività sportiva. II Pensiero Scientifico Editore.

  • Butterworth, B., & Hadar, U. (1989). Gesture, speech and computational stages: A reply to McNeill. Psychological Review, 96, 168–174.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Butterworth, B., & Beattie, G. (1978). Gesture and silence as indicators of planning in speech. In R. N. Campbell & P. T. Smith (Eds.), Recent advances in the psychology of language: Formal and experimental approaches (pp. 347–360). New York: Plenum Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Camras, L. A., Sullivan, J., & Michel, G. (1993). Do infants express discrete emotions? Adult judgements of facial, vocal, and body actions. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 17, 171–186.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chi, D., Costa, M., Zhao, L., & Badler, N. (2000). The EMOTE model for e_ort and shape. In Proceedings of the 27th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., pp. 173–182

  • Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow. The psychology of optimal performance. New York. Harper and Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Currie, G., & Ravenscroft, I. (1997). Mental simulation and motor imagery. Philosophy of Science, 64(1), 161–180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Darwin, C. (1872). The expression of the emotion in man and animals. London: John Murray.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Ruiter, J. P. (1998). Gesture ad speech production. Ph.D. Dissertation, Nijmegen University.

  • de Ruiter, J. P. (2000). The production of gesture and speech. In D. McNeill (Ed.), Language and gesture (pp. 284–311). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Decety, J. M., Jeannerod, M. G., & Pastene, J. (1991). Vegetative response during imagined moviment is proportional to mental effort. Behavioral Brain Research, 34, 35–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Decety, J., & Jeannerod, M. (1996). Mentally simulated movements in virtual reality. Does Fitts’ law hold in motor imagery? Behavioral Brain Research, 72, 127–134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dominey, P., Decety, J., Broussolle, E., Chazot, G., Jeannerod, M. (1995). Motor imagery of a lateralized sequential task is assymetrically slowed in hemi-Parkinson patients. Neuropsychologia, 33, 727–741.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P. (1982). Emotion in the human face. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P. (1985). Telling lies: Clues to deceit in the marketplace, politics, and marriage. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1969). The repertoire of nonverbal behavior. Semiotica, 1, 49–98.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P., & Friesen W. V. (1974). Detecting deception from the body or face. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29, 288–298.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ellgring, H. (1989). Nonverbal communication in depression. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feyereisen, P., & Havard, I. (1999). Mental imagery and production of hand gestures while speaking in younger and older adults. Journal of nonverbal behavior.

  • Freedman, N. (1977). Hands, words and mind. On the structuralization of body movements during discourse and the capacity for verbal representation. In N. Freedman & S. Grand (Eds.), Communicative structures. A psychoanalytic interpretation of communication (S219–S235). New York: Plenum Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerardin, E., Sirigu, A., Lehericy, S., Poline, J. B., Gaymard, B., & Marsault, C. (2000). Partially overlapping neural networks for real and imagined hand movements. Cerebral Cortex, 10, 1093–1104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldin-Meadow, S. (2003). Hearing gesture. The Belknap Press of Harvard Univeristy Press.

  • Hanin, Y. (1993). Optimal performance emotions in top athletes. In S. Serpa, J. Alves, V. Ferreira, & P. Brito (Eds.), Proceedings in the 8th World Congress of Sport Psychology. Lisbon: International Society of Sport Psychology.

  • Holler, J., & Beattie G. (2002). A microanalytic investigation of how iconic gestures and speech represent core semantic features in talk. Semiotica, 142(1/4), 31–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Izard, C. E. (1977). Human emotions. New York: Plenum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jeannerod, M. (1994). Representing brain: Neural correlates of motor intention and imagery. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 17, 187–202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jeannerod, M. (2001). Neural simulation of action: A unifying mechanism for motor cognition. NeuroImage, 14,103–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jeannerod, M., & Frack, V. (1999). Mental imaging of motor activity in humans. Current Opinion in Neurobiology., 9, 735–739.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kendon, A. (1986). Some reasons for studying gesture. Semiotica, 62–1/2, 3–28.

  • Kendon, A. (2004). Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge University Press.

  • Kita, S., & Ozyurek, A. (2003). What does cross-linguistic variation in semantic coordination of speech and gesture reveal? Evidence for an interface representation of spatial thinking and speaking. Journal of Memory and Language, 48, 16–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kosslyn (1981). The medium and the message in mental imagery. In N. Block (Ed.), Imagery. Cambridge: MIT Press.

  • Krauss, R. M., Chen, Y., & Chawla, P. (1996). Nonverbal behavior and nonverbal communication: What do conversational hand gestures tell us? In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 28, pp. 389–450). Tampa: Accademic Press.

  • Krauss, R. M., Chen, Y., & Gottesman, R. F. (2000). Lexical gestures and lexical access: A process model. In D. McNeill (Ed.), Language and gestures (pp. 261–283). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Kubistant, T. (1986). Performing your best. Champaign: Human Kinetics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lang, P. J. (1979). A bio-informational theory of emotional imagery. Psychophysiology, 16(6), 495–512.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lang, P. J. (1977). Imagery in therapy: An Informational-processing Analysis of Fear. Behavior Therapy, 9, 862–886.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lowen, A. (1967). Betrayal of the body. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lowen, A. (1971). The language of the body. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Magno Caldognetto, E., & Poggi, I. (2004). Il parlato emotivo. Aspetti cognitivi, linguistici e fonetici, in Atti del Convegno Nazionale Il parlato italiano, Napoli, 13–15 Febbraio 2003, M. D’Auria (edit) (cd-rom).

  • Martin, J.-C., Niewiadomski, R., Devillers, L., Buisine, S., & Pelachaud, C. (2006). Multimodal complex emotions: Gesture expressivity and blended facial expressions. International Journal of Humanoid Robotics,3, 269–292.

    Google Scholar 

  • McNeill, D. (1979). The conceptual basis of language. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • McNeill, D. (2005); Gesture and thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McNeill, D. (1992). Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thougth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, S. M. (1990). Models of imagery in sport psychology: A review. Journal of Mental Imagery, 14(3&4), 153–172.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ozyurek, S., & Kita, S. (1999). Expressing manner and path in English and Turkish: Differences in speech, gesture, and conceptualization. In M. Hahn & S. C. Stoness (Eds.), Proceedings of the Twenty First Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 507–512). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.

  • Paivio, A. (1969). Mental imagery in associative learning and memory. Psychological Review, 76(3), 241–263.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paivio, A. (1971). Imagery and verbal processes. New York: Rinehart and Winston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parsons, L. (1994). Temporal and kinematic properties of motor behavior reflected in mentally simulated action. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 20, 709–730.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pelachaud, C. (2005). Multimodal expressive embodied conversational agent. Singapore, ACM: ACM Multimedia, Brave New Topics Session.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poggi, I., & Magno Caldognetto, E. (1997). Mani che parlano. Padova: Unipress.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1973). What the mind’s eye tells the mind’s brain: A critique of mental imagery. Psychological Bulletin, 80, 1–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rauscher, F. H., Krauss, R. M., & Chen, Y. (1996). Gesture, speech, and lexical access: The role of lexical movements in speech production. Psychological Science, 7, 226–231.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rimè, B., & Schiaratura, L. (1991). Gesture ad speech. In R. S. Feldman & B. Rimè (Eds), Fundamentals of nonverbal behavior (pp. 239–281). New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schegloff, E. A. (1984). On some gestures’ relation to speech. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversational analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scherer, K. R. (1981). Speech and emotional states. In J. Darby (Ed.), Speech evaluation in psychiatry (pp. 189–220). New York: Grune & Stratton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scherer, K. R. (1986). Vocal affect expression: A review and a model for future research. Psychological Bulletin, 99, 143–165.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scherer, K. R., & Ellgring, H. (2007). Multimodal expression of emotion: Affect programs or componential appraisal patterns? Emotion, 7(1).

  • Stevens, J. A. (2005). Interference effects demonstrate distinct roles for visual and motor imagery during the mental representation of human action. Cognition, 95, 329–350.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Suinn, R. (1993). Imagery. In R. N. Singer, M. Murphey, & L. K. Tennant (Eds.) Handbook of research on sport psychology. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallbott, H. G. (1990). Mimik im Kontext- Die Bedeutung verschiedener Informationskomponenten fur das Erkennen von Emotionen. Gottingen: Hogrefe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallbott, H. G. (1998). Bodily expression of emotion. European Journal of Social Psychology, 28, 879–986.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zuckerman, M., Hall, J. A., DeFrank, R. S., & Rosenthal, R. (1976). Encoding and decoding of spontaneous and posed facial expressions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 966–977.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Roma Tre, Rome, 00185, Italy

    Giorgio Merola

Authors
  1. Giorgio Merola
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giorgio Merola.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Merola, G. Emotional gestures in sport. Lang Resources & Evaluation 41, 233–254 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10579-007-9052-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10579-007-9052-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation