What makes a gesture a gesture? Neural signatures involved in gesture recognition
Maria Cabrera, Keisha Novak, Daniel Foti, Richard Voyles, Juan Wachs

TL;DR
This study investigates neural signatures of gesture recognition using EEG, finding that inflection points in gestures correlate with oscillatory activity in visual and motor cortices, supporting their role as placeholders in cognition.
Contribution
It validates the hypothesis that salient motion inflection points are linked to neural activity, bridging gesture kinematics with EEG signatures in gesture recognition.
Findings
Inflection points correlate with EEG mu rhythm peaks.
EEG power increases occur 380-500ms after inflection points.
Visual and motor cortex activity is sensitive to gesture motion trajectories.
Abstract
Previous work in the area of gesture production, has made the assumption that machines can replicate "human-like" gestures by connecting a bounded set of salient points in the motion trajectory. Those inflection points were hypothesized to also display cognitive saliency. The purpose of this paper is to validate that claim using electroencephalography (EEG). That is, this paper attempts to find neural signatures of gestures (also referred as placeholders) in human cognition, which facilitate the understanding, learning and repetition of gestures. Further, it is discussed whether there is a direct mapping between the placeholders and kinematic salient points in the gesture trajectories. These are expressed as relationships between inflection points in the gestures' trajectories with oscillatory mu rhythms (8-12 Hz) in the EEG. This is achieved by correlating fluctuations in mu power…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAction Observation and Synchronization · Hearing Impairment and Communication · Hand Gesture Recognition Systems
