Brain and Body language

Hi Folks,

CBC.ca highlighted a story today on the impact of culture on the brain in terms of body language recognition (the original paper is here). Basically, it appears that body language ("proxemics" in the technical sense along with gesture) is not only culturally defined, which we knew, but is culturally encoded in the brain for recognition. In a related story, there was a PNAS article on Ape gestures that appears to back up he idea that human language derived from a gestural communication system.

These findings, and especially the first article, may have some applicability in training for a recognition of other cultures gestures and body language.

Marc