Hedda Lausberg, Univ.-Prof. Dr. med., Full Professor of Neurology, Psychosomatic Medicine, and Psychiatry, German Sport University Cologne; Dance Movement Therapist; in research, she focuses on movement behaviour and gesture and the relation to cognitive, emotional, and interactive processes. Behavioural and neuroimaging examinations on healthy participants as well as studies on patients with psychosomatic disease and brain damage, incl. split-brain patients, constitute her main approach. She aims at the clinical application of the research findings to improve diagnostics and therapy. The progress of movement behaviour research methodology has been a major concern of hers, resulting in the development of two objective and reliable tools for movement analysis: NEUROGES and BAST.

Understanding Body Movement is an interdisciplinary guide to empirical research on nonverbal behaviour. It focuses on tools and procedures to investigate body movement and gesture and the relation to cognitive, emotional, and interactive processes: NEUROGES, ELAN, interrater agreement, etc.

Contents: H. Lausberg: Movement Behaviour Research through History and in Current Scientific Disciplines - H. Lausberg: Empirical Research on Movement Behaviour and its Link to Cognitive, Emotional, and Interactive Processes - H. Lausberg: Movement Behaviour Analysis across Scientific Disciplines - H. Lausberg: The NEUROGES Coding System: Design and Psychometric Properties - R. Rein: Using 3D Kinematics for the Analysis of Hand Movement Behaviour: A Pilot Study and some Further Suggestions - H. Slöetjes: The ELAN Annotation Tool - H. Lausberg/H. Slöetjes: NEUROGES in Combination with the Annotation Tool ELAN - H. Slöetjes: Step by Step Instruction in NEUROGES Coding with ELAN - H. Lausberg: Study Designs in Movement Behaviour Research - H.Skomroch/K. Hogrefe/R. Rein: Speakers Adapt their Hand Movement Behaviour to the Content of Visual Stimuli - H. Lausberg: Rater Training and Rating Procedures - J. Bryjovà: The NEUROGES Interactive Learning Tool - K. Petermann/H. Skomroch/D. Dvoretska: Calculating Temporal Interrater Agreement for Binary Movement Categories - H. Holle/R. Rein: The Modified Cohen's Kappa: Calculating Interrater Agreement for Segmentation and Annotation - H. Skomroch: Recommendations for Assessing the Level of Interrater Agreement - U. Sassenberg/I. Helmich: Statistical Evaluation and Data Presentation - H. Lausberg/D. Dvoretska/M. Kryger: Evaluating NEUROGES Data on Interaction.

This book is an interdisciplinary guide to empirical research on nonverbal behaviour. It focuses on tools and procedures to investigate body movement and gesture and the relation to cognitive, emotional, and interactive processes. NEUROGES is an objective and reliable coding system for movement behaviour and gesture. Its combination with the multi-media annotation tool ELAN results in an effective movement analysis. Rater training and rating procedures constitute an important component in movement behaviour studies. A novel algorithm assesses interrater agreement for the segmentation of the ongoing flow of behaviour. Recommendations for study designs and statistical data evaluation are given, including innovative procedures for the analysis of interactive partners' body movements.