Merging pronunciation with posture and gesture (PGMs)

Have you been watching any of the US presidential debates or video clips of both candidates? In doing a delightfully biased analysis of the use of body movement by both men, researchers at NYU and UC Berkeley, summarized by Science Daily, set the stage this way:

Clip art: Clker

 "Physical motions of speakers determine how voters feel about them. How they move influences whether you believe they are standing behind what they are saying -- or if you get the impression they are simply repeating a memorized list of terms. A speaker's physical movements -- arms, legs, shoulders, and facial expression -- can undermine or even contradict the verbal message."

Setting aside the results of the study, what is of particular interest are PGMs, " . . . full-body gesture movements, also called Posture-Gesture Mergers (PGMs), occurred when the candidates were stating their own beliefs and lauding their own accomplishments, with emphasis added in their beliefs by those body motions."

The concept of the PGM is actually a good way to characterize haptic (-integrated) anchoring: engaging the whole attention of the learner, using gesture, the visual field, posture and pronunciation. I will use that acronym from now on. In fact, had I a video camera handy, would love to whole-heartedly and whole-bodily PGM the strength of our belief in that regard and go on to "laud" some typical EHIEP stories and accomplishments.