Three classifications of gestures

Thieffry and Malek (1981) [7] separate gestures into:

{Intransitive gestures: "the ones that have a universal language value especially for the expression of affective and aesthetic ideas. Such gestures can be indicative, exhortative, imperative, rejective, etc."
• Transitive gestures: "the ones that are part of an uninterrupted sequence of interconnected structured hand movements that are adapted in time and space, with the aim of completing a program, such as prehension."


Mulder, from Cadoz's classification of gesture's functions, classifies gestures in a similar, but not equivalent, way as:

• Semiotic gestures, from Cadoz's original scheme (according to Cadoz: unidirectional gestures). Examples are conductor's gestures, natural gestures, etc. (note that here gestures don't need to be universal, such as conductor gestures, that are very restricted). In other words, Empty-handed or free gestures - specifically: hand movements.
• Ergotic gestures (according to Cadoz: interactive gestures) - in our opinion, indissociable from epistemic gestures, the tactile-kinesthetic senses. Cadoz considers some of these gestures, as in the case of instrumental gestures, as possessing the three functions: semiotic, ergotic and epistemic. Otherwise stated: Gestures applied to an object - specifically: hand actions (such as prehension).

Baecker, Grudin, Buxton and Greenberg [9] classify the different gestural devices (thus indirectly, gestures)as haptic or non-haptic (from the Greek language, the word haptic means relative to contact). We use this typology in order to classify different sensors, as done by the Pedagogy Department at IRCAM (Note that this third classification is equivalent to the second one).

Let's now further analyse both groups. We start by considering empty-handed gestures and their relation to speech.
 

Wed Feb 10 10:07:20 MET 1999