Seminar | Cultural and Individual Differences in Pointing Gesture

Pointing gestures are a universal feature of human communication, yet they vary considerably across contexts and individuals. This lecture examines how pointing preferences are shaped by two intersecting levels of influence. At the cultural level, ecological and economic factors—particularly the degree to which daily activities occupy the hands—systematically modulate the likelihood of using manual versus non-manual forms of pointing. At the individual level, dispositional traits such as empathy and extraversion selectively enhance the production of manual pointing, while leaving non-manual forms unaffected. Drawing on cross-cultural and individual-difference evidence, I argue that pointing behaviour emerges from a dynamic interplay between environmental affordances and personal characteristics. This integrative perspective offers a framework for investigating communicative actions that are often presumed to be biologically fixed. The lecture concludes by discussing implications for studying gesture across diverse populations and real-world settings.