Body movement. 1. A conspicuous up-and-down motion of the Adam's apple. 2. A movement of the

Usage: The Adam's-apple-jump is an unconscious sign of emotional anxiety, embarrassment, or stress.

U.S. politics. The Adam's apple gained it's 15 minutes of fame when former Vice President James

RESEARCH REPORTS: 1. Swallowing "associates well with flight and submission" (Grant 1969:528).

2. Stimulating the emotionally sensitive amygdala can cause involuntary body movements "associated

Anatomy. Anxiety, social discomfort (e.g., embarrassment), and fear are often visible in unwitting,

vertical movements of a projection at the front of the throat called the laryngeal prominence, where the

largest (or thyroid) cartilage of the Adam's apple shows, prominently in men, but less noticeably in

Neuro-notes. Acting through the vagus nerve (cranial X), emotional tension from the brain's limbic

system causes unconscious muscular contractions of the sternothyroid, thyrohyoid, and associated

inferior pharyngeal constrictor muscles of the Adam's apple. Movement is evident as the muscles

contract to swallow, to throat-clear, or to vocalize an objection which may be left unsaid. The Adam's

by the vagus, which is one of five special visceral nerves.

Synonym--Gulping. See also NECK DIMPLE, NECKWEAR, PALM-UP, SHOULDER-SHRUG.

Copyright © 1998 - 2001 (David B. Givens/Center for Nonverbal Studies)

I have always tried to render inner feelings through the mobility of the muscles . . . --Auguste Rodin

spastic of some kind. --Elia Kazan, commenting on actor James Dean (Dalton 1984:53)

Concept. Any of several changes in the physical location, place, or position of the material parts of the

human form (e.g., of the eyelids, hands, or shoulders).

Usage: The nonverbal brain expresses itself through diverse motions of our body parts (see, e.g.,

BODY LANGUAGE, GESTURE). That body movement is central to our expressiveness is reflected in

the ancient Indo-European root, meue- ("mobile"), for the English word, emotion.

Anatomy. Our body consists of a jointed skeleton moved by muscles. Muscles also move our internal

organs, the areas of skin around our face and neck, and our bodily hairs. (When we are frightened, e.g.,

concepts through the contraction of muscles: without muscles to move its parts, our body would be nearly

silent.

Anthropology. Stricken with a progressive spinal-cord illness, the late anthropologist, Robert F. Murphy

described his personal journey into paralysis in his last book, The Body Silent. As he lost muscle control,

Confidence. "The physical confidence that he [Erik Weihenmayer, 33, the first blind climber to scale

Media. In movies of the 1950s, such as Monkey Business (1952) and Jailhouse Rock (1957), motions of

Salesmanship. "Your walk, entering and exiting, should be brisk and businesslike, yes. But once you are

RESEARCH REPORT: "A nonverbal act is defined as a movement within any single body area (head,

E-Commentary: "I am searching for the piece of influential advice that will help one of my employees to communicate in

a positive way nonverbally. Her boredom and impatience are so evident. She shifts in her seat, rolls her eyes, and sighs

Neuro-notes. Many nonverbal signals arise from ancient patterns of muscle contraction laid down

hundreds of millions of years ago in paleocircuits of the spinal cord, brain stem, and forebrain.

See also FACIAL EXPRESSION, INTENTION CUE, POSTURE.

Copyright © 1998 - 2001 (David B. Givens/Center for Nonverbal Studies)

nubbins, knobs, edges and ledges, converting all of it into a road map etched into his mind. --Karl Greenfeld (2001:60) on

Erik Weihenmayer, 33, the first blind climber to scale Mount Everest (see below, Anatomy)

His hands rose, fluttered like wounded birds a few inches above the surface of his desk, slowly came back to a landing. --

George C. Chesbro, Shadow of a Broken Man (1977:40)

Smart parts. 1. The terminal end organs below the forearms, used to grasp and gesture. 2. The most

Usage: Their combined verbal and nonverbal IQs make hands our most expressive body parts. Hands

have more to say even than faces, for not only do fingers show emotion, depict ideas, and point to

butterflies on the wing--they can also read Braille, speak in sign languages, and write poetry. Our hands

Observation. So connected are hands to our nervous system that we rarely keep them still. Indeed, the

sensory feelers.

Anatomy. Hands are the tactile antennae we throw out to assay our material world and palpate its moods.

is uniquely crafted to shape thousands of signs. Watching a hand move is rather like peering into the

brain itself.

Cave art. Stenciled images of human hands are "common" and "sometimes dominate" areas of Ice-Age

system" (Scarre 1993:59; see below, Neuro-notes II).

Evolution. The 27 bones, 33 muscles and 20 joints of our hand originated ca. 400 m.y.a. from the lobe

fins of early fishes known as rhipidistians. Primeval "swim fins" helped our aquatic ancestors paddle

through Devonian seas in search of food and mates. In amphibians, forelimbs evolved as weight-bearing

platforms for walking on land. In primates, hands were singled out for upgrade as tactile antennae or

centers of the brain. Not only can we thread a needle, e.g., we can also pantomime the act of threading

with our fingertips (see MIME CUE)--or reward a child's successful threading with a gentle pat. There is

Embryology. Hands are visible as fleshy paddles on limb buds of the human fetus until the 6th week of

hands and arms make coordinated paddling movements in mother's amniotic fluid. Placed in water

shortly after birth, babies can swim, as paleocircuits of the aquatic brain & spinal cord prompt

Infancy. Babies are born with the primate ability to grasp objects tightly in a climbing-related power

grip. Later, they instinctively reach for items placed in front of them. Between 1-1/2 and 3 months,

reflexive grasping is replaced by an ability to hold-on by choice. Voluntary reaching appears during the

4th and 5th months of age, and coordinated sequences of reaching, grasping, and handling objects are

dryness of Nonverbal World (Chase and Rubin 1979).

Early signs. By 5 months, as a prelude to more expressive mime cues, babies posture with arms and

hands as if anticipating the size and hardness (or softness) of objects in their reach space (Chase and

sides of their index fingers, in an apelike precursor of the precision grip. At this time, babies also pull,

pound, rub, shake, push, twist, and creatively manipulate objects to determine their "look and feel"

Later signs. Eventually, a baby's hands experiment not only with objects themselves but with component

parts, as if curious to learn more about relationships and about how things fit together (Chase and Rubin

1979). At one year, infants grasp objects between the tactile pads of thumb and index fingers, in a

mature, distinctively human precision grip. Pointing with an extended index finger also begins at 12

months, as babies use the cue to refer to novel sights and sounds--and speak their first words.

Neuro-notes I. Our brain devotes an unusually large part of its surface area to hands and fingers (see

HOMUNCULUS). In the mind's eye, as a result a. of the generous space they occupy on the sensory and

motor strips of our neocortex, and b. of the older paleocircuits linking them to emotional and grooming

centers of the mammalian brain, almost anything a hand does holds potential as a sign. Today, our

cerebellum, which lay the groundwork for nonverbal learning, manual sign language, computer

keyboard fluency, and the ability to make tools of stone, silicon, and steel.

Neuro-notes II. We respond to hands and their gestures with an extreme alertness because specialized

nerve cells in the lower temporal lobe respond exclusively to hand positions and shapes (see, e.g., Kandel at al. 1991:458-59).