Pointing, Part 1

today I wanted to talk a bit about pointing. I think the episodes that we recently did on Medusa really got me in the mind to think about the power of pointing with a finger, because when we talked about Medusa recently, you know, we ended up spending a lot of time thinking about like what what a gaze means, What it means, you know, to imagine this kind of ray emerging from the eyes as you look at someone, and the and the mystical power that ancient people seem

to think that had. But there's a counterpart to that, which is the pointing finger or the pointing hand. It almost seems like it's the sort of celestial twin of the of the powerful gaze. Yeah, and if you if you followed us in those Medusa episodes and and followed our discussion of of what it is to gaze, it's

something to be gazed at. To have our you know, attention focused in such a way, then I think you you have a you're in a better place to then contemplate, uh pointing this, uh, this extra layer of complexity with human attention. Yeah, I agree. So in fact, I would say, you know, if you haven't listened to our Medusa episodes yet, you'll probably get more out of this one if you go and listen to those first. Though you don't have to write, I would recommend it. So yeah, let's get

right into it. Uh. In the spirit this is actually one of my favorite things to do on the show, is just to take something that's so familiar it's invisible to us and try to figure out again what's strange about it that. That's where I want to start with pointing um, because I think it's easy to miss how weird and versatile and ingenious the pointing gesture is. It's one of those miracles of nature that the usually remains

invisible to us until it fails. I love how the brain works like that, like you don't see it until it doesn't work, because it almost always works. And one of the ways for me that it fails most often is when I try to use it with my dog. Now there is evidence actually, and we can talk about this later in the episode, that sometimes domestic dogs can understand pointing gestures, and I was testing it out a

good bit with my dog Charlie the other day. I would say, occasionally he sort of seems to to to follow a pointing gesture, but it's very rare. Most of the time he definitely does not get it. And when I extend my finger to point something out to him, Charlie doesn't look in the direction that I'm pointing. He looks at my hand because I think most of the time, to to him and his dog's brain, there is no

such thing as pointing. The outstretched hand and finger is simply a currently active part of my body I might be about to use. Is it to feed him or to pet him, you know, activities that interest him, but the activity does not seem to indicate anything beyond my body. And it's this kind of failure that makes you appreciate

how strange and amazing pointing actually is. Uh So, probably the most basic definition of pointing, I would say, is it's a movement of the body in the direction of a target that draws the attention of an audience to that target. But beyond that, I think it's also interesting because pointing projects the reach of the body in imaginary space.

I can extend my hand and instantly cause you, not not just invite you to, but sort of cause you, even against your own will, to imagine an invisible geometric vector stretching out from my fingertips to the target. And isn't that actually so strange? Yeah, it reminds me of Futurama.

Dr Farnsworth. One of his many inventions is the thing Longler, which is this, uh, basically just this super long finger that goes on your hand so you can you can touch things and point at things from from further away. But like, in a sense, pointing is the thing Longler.

It is the original thing longer. Uh and so you know it's it's that's one of the things that makes the invention of the thing Longer all the more ridiculous and uh and and comedic, because we already do this when we point at something, right, Yeah, we do it through the imagination and it's there. There's a constant triangulation that that goes on when you're engaging in pointing between the pointer and the the audience and then the thing

being pointed at. It's one of the reasons that, in a in a weird kind of way, laser pointers, like as used in classrooms always felt kind of crass and unholy to me. I think I didn't pick up on the reasoning at the time, But you know, what is it that seems kind of like just gross about using a laser pointer to point at ings on a projector chalkboard. It's like you're eliminating the triangle now, the indication is all just happening at the thing you're looking at. You know.

I never thought that way about laser pointers. I guess I always had they were kind of neat because my comparison was always the Terminator films, where he had the laser side on a gun. So anytime anytime a teacher busted out a laser pointer, I was just like, oh, it's like Terminator, this is awesome. I guess I would have gone more to Predator because Predator has got a laser pointer two right. Oh yeah, it's got the triple

laser pointer um, which is also awesome. But but I think I think my first exposure to the technology was the laser site that the Terminator uses. Oh you know, in fact, the Predator takes this elimination of the third party in the triangle, uh, to to the ultimate extreme because he's got the invisibility cloak on while he projects the laser pointer, so you can't even see him. It's just the dots. Yeah. Well, here's the subjective mind cirtation.

I'm gonna be taking a few months off to write that, but anyway, so I want to come back and think about the sort of instinctual grammar of the gesture, of how the pointing gesture is applied and how much we can communicate with it, often without saying anything at all. So maybe the most basic is that you can use pointing, of course, to indicate a place you know, you gesture and it causes the audience to look there or to

be suggested to go there. Beyond that, you can indicate something that you want right, like imagine a child asking for a toy, or imagine, uh, even an adult like picking out a food item from behind glass at a cafe without any words, just point. And in fact, I think this highlights a distinction that comes up when experts talk about pointing as an acquired skill in childhood development.

According to a twelve paper in the journal Cognitive Science by Lisztkowski, at all, in every human culture where we've ever at this question. With a few neurological exceptions. Human infants begin to point at between nine to fourteen months. This is often average to say about one year of age, but like nine to fourteen months is the average, and the authors here called pointing a pre linguistic gestural universal. It appears that every culture does it, and children acquire

it very early, generally before speech. Yeah. Yeah, and it's I've also seen it referred to as like what the golden road to language because and having having you know, had a child that it couldn't speak yet. Uh. This is one of the primary ways the child can of course acquire the things it wants. Point at it and it will be you know, given unto you, or it will be denied you, and you know, a lot of

emotions will result. But also it's it's key in helping them acquire language because then we can point at things and let them know what the name is for that, what word is associated with that thing. Uh. So it's it's very important in both ways, not only their use of the point, but their understanding of pointing and others. Yeah, I think this is a fantastic point. Like if oh man, we're gonna have so many like pun not in writing point like. Then this author makes the point of saying, no,

they can't do. I know, I was trying to take it out of all my notes, but I don't think I caught them all, and I'm gonna improvise a few horrible ones as we go on, so I apologize in advance. Um. But yeah, but I think this is a fantastic uh uh suggestion you make here about it being the bridge to language and uh in serving this mediating role because in childhood development there appear to be two very importantly different types of pointing, and these are known as imperative

pointing versus declarative pointing. So to sort those out, imperative pointing is usually acquired earlier. It comes first, And to quote a two thousand four paper by Lund University philosopher Ingar brink Um, she says a quote, imperative pointing involves a conception of the other as a self propelling, causal agent that one can influence to do something for oneself by gesturing. So imperative pointing is typified by the give

me that pointing. This kind of pointing tends to come first where you it's a kind of ritualized retrieving activity. You point toward the thing you want to cause the agent, generally the adult, to give it to you. But then what follows from that is to pick up again from from brinks writing a declarative pointing. On the other hand, declarative pointing is defined as the pre verbal effort to direct the adults attention to some event or object in

the world. Uh. And this thing I was quoting from was published in Cognitive Science Quarterly in two thousand four. So whereas the imperative pointing is typified give me that pointing, you're trying to affect the adult to do an action to bring you something or something like that, the declarative pointing comes later and is characterized as look at that pointing. It's an explicit attempt to control someone else's attention. Yeah,

and I think it is key. I noticed a number of of authors who are looking at here talking about pointing not merely as suggestion but is in but as control, as demanding of intention, commanding of intention. And I think that's important because we, you know, we're often kind of even if we we're thinking about pointing at things with our finger, which is will discussed later, is is you know,

often thought of as being perhaps less than polite. Uh, sometimes we're very polite in our analysis of of what it is to point. And I do think when we when we are engaging in this kind of pointing, there is a there is a force behind it, there is a demand, there is a control. Like it is, I mean when it when as anyone ever pointed at something and and and you find yourself not following that finger to the to the object that they're referring to, like

we cannot help it. I think you're exactly correct. And the idea that pointing, much like language, once you've acquired the ability to understand these gestures or these signs or symbols, it becomes not just an invitation to engage in communication with someone, but it's it's irresistible. The same way that

if I say orangutan, you have no choice. But now I said that word and an orangutan came into your mind, and you didn't have the ability to say no, I won't process that word, and I won't think of an orangutan. It just happens, whether you want it to or not.

The same thing appears to be true, or at least pretty pretty close to us true with pointing, whereas you know, it's just this totally irresistible thing you cannot help but imagine when somebody points that vector coming out of their hand and have your attention thus lead direct did Yeah, you're like, oh my goodness, that guy does have two thumbs and he loves to party. Granted, that's thumb pointing, but but I think a similar effect takes place. Well, yeah,

I don't know. So while index finger pointing, and we'll talk more about this as we go on. While index finger pointing does appear to be very common around the world, there there are tons of different kinds of pointing. It doesn't have to be the index finger. It's whatever you part of your body you use to indicate a vector to direct somebody's attention. We're gonna look at one study

about a very interesting type of nose pointing. But just to come back to the power of pointing, I think one thing that's very interesting is that you can go beyond all this that we've already talked about. They'll like, you know, look at that, go there, give me that kind of pointing. One utility that's extremely versatile is that you can also use pointing to slot in concepts to

build sentences within an implied structure or grammar. So easy way of conceptualizing this is think about the different ways that pointing can be used. If you're playing charades, you can point at something to indicate that that thing you're pointing at is the subject of a phrase or that is similar to the subject of a phrase. You can point at something to suggest that it's state or activity or properties fills the role of a verb or an

adjective in a target phrase. And then you can even you can like point at a player to indicate that the guests they've just made is correct or on the right track. It's an affirmation. So you can essentially you can build a grammar, you can build a lexicon, you can build whole sentences out of just pointing gestures interacting with the world and with other people. Absolutely, Now I want to cite one of my main sources in this episode.

I was looking around for research on on pointing, and one thing I found that was very helpful was a really interesting presentation given at a conference at u c l A by a you see San Diego cognitive scientists named Kin's Cooper, writer who has done a lot of research on pointing, and he he gave this presentation at this conference that I found video of online called fifteen ways of looking at a pointing gesture, And so he collected a few more examples of ways that pointing can

work as a kind of communicative work course. He calls it uh that that it just has this incredible power in in communication. Like he cites a couple of studies from two thousand eleven and finding that more than sixty percent of all gestures were pointing gestures. And so he goes on to to analyze this question of like, well, why is pointing so pervasive them? Why is pointing you know, sixty percent or more of all the gestures we do? Why doesn't we let it take over so much of

our communication? And I think he makes some very good points. One is that pointing is incredibly efficient. It seems to cut out a huge amount of excess communication in terms of number of words needed or other gestures that would be needed to communicate something. Pointing often has the effect of cutting right to the chase of whatever it is

you're trying to communicate. Yeah, and you can you can get a taste for this if you've ever been in a situation where, uh, you absolutely cannot point at someone or something, but you wish to, through just language, bring somebody else's attention to it. Um. It can you often find that it is as a drawn out process, and it can feel maddening. Like if if you're in a situation where you want to indicate something and you can't

point at it, it feels like you're losing your mind. Yeah, Like, say, Kevin Bacon just walked into the same um Burger king that you're where you're dining, and you know it would be wrong to point at Kevin Bacon, but you really want your you're dining um accomplix here too, to know that Kevin Bacon is here. Like, what can you do? You have to say, all right, look, don't freak out or anything, but I want you to Okay, look where I just looked. Okay, now look over there again. See that?

Do you see who I'm looking at? It gets yeah, it gets tedious fast. Yeah. Um. So another thing that Cooper writer says is that pointing is highly flexible. We've already explored this and you're talking about the charades example. But um, but you know, he points out that it's not just to direct somebody's attention to, you know, a thing you want them to look at. It can indicate

things abstract or imagined. Uh that there's one example that we can look at when we look at some paintings earlier of da Vinci's John the Baptist pointing up to Heaven in his paintings. Now that is an Yeah, this is an interesting idea. It's like the pointing up um. You see this occasionally used in art, in in various other gestures. And we we tend not to follow the point that, you know, their fingerpoint. We're not looking up to see what are they pointing at? Like there's the

especially if their gaze is also not skyward. And so pointing appears to be highly effective, highly efficient, highly versatile as communication. It really works. Children pick it up and understand it very early early on. Apparently there's evidence that they put more weight on pointing based communication than they do on words. And as we were talking about earlier, you know, adults are it's almost impossible to ignore pointing. When somebody points, you just look and it has this

like capture over your brain that is somewhat involuntary. But there is also a strange way in which pointing takes on a kind of mystical or magical power that transcends mere informative or imperative indication, where pointing seems to uh to suggest things about relationships that that feel like they go deep and they carry emotional heft or they carry spiritual indication. So I think maybe next week we should look at uh strange and mystical pointing and a few paintings.

All right, but first let's take a quick break than alright, we're back, all right, So we were gonna look at uh strange mystical kinds of significance that pointing seems to have in a lot of great works of art. Uh. You know, one thing that I was mentioning this presentation by Kensey Cooper writer earlier, and one thing he does mention in his presentation is the idea of Leonardo da

Vinci and uh and pointing in his paintings. And so I was reading part of a book by Walter Isaacson about Da Vinci's life where he's got a chapter that deals a lot with like a phase towards the end of Leonardo da Vinci's life where it seems like he was painting a lot of stuff that had pointing in it. One great example is the painting Saint John the Baptist, which was painted some time between fifteen thirteen and fifteen sixteen. Yeah, this is a very interesting um portrait here of John

the Baptist. For for one thing, it is it's if you haven't seen it, whatever you're imagining, Uh, for a John the Baptist portrait like this is not it like you tend to think of Like when I said, think of art that had John the Baptist in it, I tend to think of like I bearded head that has been cut away from John the Baptist body. You know, I tend to think that sort of imagery. And this is um a very androgynous image of of of a

more youthful again androgynous figure. Uh. And it's and he's pointing, but he and he's pointing up, but he's not pointing up in a way like hey, I'm about to go fly in the sky, or hey I think it's gonna rain up there. There's a kind of a curve to his hand, almost as if he is bending space. Like he's like he's pointing not into something within our observable physical dimensions, but into some hidden dimension. Yeah, it's very

strange and interesting painting. I mean, one thing beyond what you're saying is that the expression on John the Baptist face here is undeniably flirty. Yeah, like like it's being very suggestively playful with the viewer. Um. And and so he's pointing up like this. The pointing is very clearly the center of the painting. It's what the eye is immediately drawn to, and it's the gesture. And the painting is so overt it almost suggests additional obscure meanings beyond

the direct reference to John the Baptist biblical role. I mean, one way of understanding it is very straightforward is John the Baptist and the Gospels. As you know, I'm here to to prepare the way of the Lord. I'm here to you know, turn people's eyes towards God. But I don't know, it seems like there must be something else going on. The pointing feels like a spell being cast. It does, it really does. I definitely recommend everyone check this one out to just really understand what we're talking

about here. Um and I do agree there is this kind of flirty aspect to Um. The countenance of John the Baptist. Here. I've read that this image in particular is often brought up as an example of da Vinci's homo erotic leanings in his art um though mainly again for this soft and and androgynist nature of the betrayal, not so much anything with the pointing. Yeah, but it's fantastic painting either way. It's wonderful to look at, and

so there's tons of pointing all throughout da Vinci. Actually, uh so, you know da Vinci's famous fresco The Last Supper depicting the final meal between Jesus and his disciples. If you actually look at the detail of it, it's crammed with pointing. I think at least four or five of the disciples are arguably engaging in some kind of pointing in this in this work of art. Yeah. Yeah, this is a really interesting painting to touch on because we've we've largely discussed pointing is more or less as

singular though multipurpose gesture. But in this painting we see just a lot of general gesticulation, a lot of characters clearly talking with their hands. We have this cool way as humans of of treating linguistic concepts like physical concepts like waves or fluids, you know, like like our words or something in the air that can then be like fluffed up or or pushed towards the person that is going to hear them. Oh, and that comes through in another gesture you see in this painting, which is the

raised hands defensive posture. I don't remember which disciple that is, but one of the disciples has the hands up, palms out in you know, it's as a gesture we all recognize as the like hey, back off gesture, which is often used to deflect pointing. You know, if you get if you start pointing a finger at somebody, and we're about to talk a bit more about taboos and aggressive pointing, but you start pointing a finger at somebody, what do they often do the hands go up as if to

like defend from an incoming lance. Absolutely, yeah. But one more interesting Da Vinci painting or actually it's not a DaVinci painting, the painting by Raphael the School of Athens, which in metaphor I think is supposed to depict Da Vinci or Da Vinci's likeness in the figure of Plato. Uh, you know, it shows Plato and Aristotle wandering through the through the school where all the young philosophers are and uh, Plato or da Vinci in the painting is clearly pointing

these pointing straight up at the sky. A lot of times this has taken to indicate something about Plato's philosophy actually right, you know, like pointing to the higher realm of forms. But it also could be a reference to Da Vinci, who loved a pointing finger in his artwork and and seem to think a pointing finger had some kind of mystical power. Well, there is kind of a mystical power, isn't it When when someone is speaking and they have an index finger raised, but they are not pointing.

It's pointing up, but they're not pointing at the sky, like their gaze is not also uh skyward. Uh it is not. It's it's it's it's ambiguous because it's they're not really they're not pointing it themselves. They're not pointing at their own brain, like, listen to these these thoughts

that are pouring out of my melon. Um. They're not pointing at anyone individual, But there's just kind of like this general um commanding of attention to the words that are being spoken, holding the finger pointed up like that while you're speaking. In a way, I mean, not always, but in a way it can be kind of like

holding a loaded gun. It's like I'm standing here ready to deploy the pointing gesture to command your attention at any moment, and you're on edge waiting for that gesture to be deployed, but it doesn't get deployed, so instead you're just there. You're in suspense and your attention is wrapped. Yeah,

that's that's interesting. I thought earlier when you're talking about pointing, like how the invention of of the gun, particularly the handgun, ends up uh, adjusting how we think about these gesticulations. Because if you make if you make guns with your hands, uh, and you point them at somebody. Depending on how you do it, it can be it can be very playful. Uh. It can also be you know, it can be it can be a threat. It can be a blatant threat

against your your life. Uh. There, there's so you know, so so much that can be said with just the pointing of a finger. Yeah, well, the finger gun. I'd say the most common uses are one as a threat and two as like hey, that guy pew. If you add the pe pew that is always well at least generally going to make it a more playful gesture. Um uh. There's another one I want to turn to briefly in terms of paintings that involve pointing, and that's a couple

of things by William Blake. So one that I found that I thought was amazing is that I was totally unfamiliar with it before. But it was painted in sevent and it's called God Judging Adam. Or actually I don't

think it's a painting. It's an etching printed on paper from a copper plate, but of course it's William Blake, William Blake with all his wonderful, weird alternative theology, and the painting depicts God on a fiery throne extending a hand, and I think the hand is holding a scepter that's that's pointing toward Adam's head while Adam is sort of hunched over with his hair hanging all over the place.

It looks like he doesn't even have arms, but I think they're just being obscured by his hair in the painting, and there's this like flaming horse behind him. Uh So, Uh, I know. God, I think is supposed to be holding a scepter in this painting, but instead, to me, it just looks like God is pointing with his finger outstretched and there's this pure vector of gray power emanating from his extended finger into Adam's head. I mean, I just

see the Farnsworth fing longler in this particular image. That's what it looks like God has. But also, old man God in this painting, I feel like he is. It looks like he is enthroned on the chariot um of Helios. It looks like he is on a solar chariot. Well. Yeah, Also I think the God in this painting blurs over into I don't remember all the details of Blake's idiosyncratic theology, but he had this figure of what's it called urism or something that is clearly overlapping with what God is

depicted as here. But yeah, I see the fing Longler thing. Now the next image that you have picked out, this one is probably going to be the associated image for this particular episode if you follow like our Instagram feed. Oh okay, so this next one is uh one that that I was aware of again because a Cooper writer used this in his presentation. I thought this was so interesting. It's another William Blake painting. This one is called Job Rebuked by his Friends. It's from eighty five and Blake

here is illustrating a scene in the Bible. It's from the Book of Job, chapter twelve, verse four, where it's uh where you know the poetry says, I am as one mocked of his neighbor, who calleth upon God, and he answer with him, the just upright man is laughed to scorn. So Job is their suffering. So very very simple recap of the Book of Job is that Job is a righteous man who who fears God, and he's very blessed. He's you know, rich, and things are going

great for him. And the devil says to God, you know, why don't you take away everything good he has and make his life miserable and then you'll see that he's not really your end after all? Job will curse you then, so God, So God allows the devil to do that to Job. You know, everything is he's lost everything, all his children die, all his crops are destroyed and everything.

And then his friends are here condemning him. That you know, the scorn here seems to be coming from job insisting that he's actually innocent and he has not sinned, and his friends are saying, you know, that's ridiculous. Of course you you must have done something wicked since you're being punished like this, um. And they're all pointing at him

with both hands. They're pointing at him while he's there suffering, and the pointing seems to be a manifestation of this, uh this, you know, kind of supernatural implied guilt and malice from God above. Now that's interesting, the pointing with both hands, because that's not something I feel like we see at least in our our modern pointing culture, unless

you're talking about the double thumb self referential pointing. But in terms of double index fingers, I I don't think I have or see that, And when I'm doing I'm doing it right now at the laptop as we record this, and it feels weird, it feels unnatural. I'm trying to think of cases where I would point with both hands. I mean, it would make more sense if I just went full pew pew blasters with my fingers like that at least feels more in keeping with the way we

use pointing. Today. But if I'm making like straight up look at you fingers, it's it feels strange. Yeah, well, so shown in this image, I mean there's clear significance that pointing has this um dangerous aggressive power to it as well. I mean, often we're just pointing at things in a way that feels very neutral and and you know,

doesn't have a lot of emotional valance. But this clearly illustrates that pointing can be threatening, can feel dangerous, can even feel terrifying, and it well, obviously what just came to my mind is is you know that famous image from Invasion to the Body Snatchers, where you know, the creatures they discover there's somebody who's still human and they

point and scream um. But but it makes me think about how in many cultures, including in modern American culture, to varying degrees, there are various taboos around pointing, especially at people, but also in various cases, sometimes at certain kinds of objects. This has been documented in numerous studies. Uh, pointing taboos are not the same everywhere, they're not universal, but they are a but there are various kinds of pointing taboos found all over the world, and their culturally

variable in their features and levels of emphasis. So just one example of a study about one way pointing taboos

manifest in a particular culture. I was looking at a study published in two thousand one by Sataro Kita and James A. Seg B in the journal Gesture called pointing Left in Ghana, how a taboo on the use of the left hand influences gestural practice And so basically there's previously documented evidence that pointing with the left hand was considered a taboo among many people in Ghana, and the researchers here studied this by going to Ghana and asking

people on the street in Ghana for directions to somewhere, and then documenting what kinds of gestures they used while they were giving directions. And so there were several interesting findings here. One they observed and apparently common politeness convention, that when you know people were being were helping out a stranger with directions, they would often place the left hand on the lower back as if to hide it uh. And then second, as a they say quote as a

consequence of left hand suppression. Right handed pointing may involve an anatomically straining position when indicating a leftward direction across the body. So, like they documented these cases where people would point with the right hand instead of the left, even though positioning of the hand the direction indicated was awkward. Right, they have to like point across their own body or something. And then finally they observed that quote, pointing is sometimes

performed with both hands together. This picking up on uh, this which does not violate the taboo uh. And I've I've definitely seen this kind of gesture in an American context. Where as far as I know, there's not a generalized taboo against left hand pointing, but there's some other unspoken rule of politeness or taboo avoidance that sometimes demands, you know,

different kinds of pointing. In one way, I think we sometimes adapt to that as putting the fingers together in the you know, the hands, not pointing with both fingers separately, but you know, like weaving the fingers together and pointing like that. I've seen that happen in business meetings. But the authors here they say, quote, despite the taboo, left handed pointing is not suppressed fully. Left handed pointing gestures occur in association with the verbalization of the concept left,

suggesting the embodied nature of the concept. In addition, it is noteworthy that there is a class of left handed gestures which are so reduced in form that Ghanaians do not consider them as pointing for the purpose of the taboo. But that's just one example. It's one particular type of pointing in a particular culture. There are also these extremely broad trends found in many cultures, such as an apparent taboo against pointing at human beings with an extended index finger. Yes.

And this can be of course trying with children because because as we we mentioned earlier, like pointing at things and people is a key way that they interact with the world early on. And so I think we probably all have examples from our childhood or you know that the childhoods of others where a child points at somebody h to ask, you know, a literally a pointed question about them, or to you know, to to point them out in a way that is inappropriate. Uh, certainly if

they were an adult. Totally. Yeah, it's it's a thing that has to be properly socialized into children, just like the kinds of things that it's polite to say or not say. Um. And so again this next citation I became aware of because it was in Cooper Writer's presentation.

I thought this was really interesting. So there's a study by Finland at All in twenty nineteen which found that UM in groups of people from Western cultures, when pointing to present people, so as so pointing to the self or other persons present in a in a communicating group, the whole hand was preferred instead of the standard index finger.

So these are cultures where pointing with the index finger is common, But if you're talking about somebody who's here, you point with your whole hand instead of the extended index finger. Yeah, your open hand what I think of as a behold gesture. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. Uh. So you know, I think if you live in the United States or many other countries, you can very likely notice this tendency yourself. Like I would say,

I recognize it. I normally use a finger to point at an object or maybe even to point at a person who is not within the conversation or you know, like a person on a screen on the TV or something. But I would use a whole hand with an open palm to point to myself for two people in a group that I was talking to Pointing with an index finger in this context would feel I can feel it just imagining it. It would feel aggressive unless done maybe

in the context of a joke or something. It's got it's some kind of mild taboo, and it feels kind of threatening and aggressive or transgressive. Yeah, yeah, it certainly does, you know. And one thing that comes to mind and all this too, is you, Okay, we're talking about gesturing, pointing at someone with the open hand, uh, gesturing with the index finger. But there's so many other possibilities you

just do not see. For instance, I've never seen anyone point at someone with a closed fist, you know, unless they are brandishing a fist at somebody, you know, either out of legitimate rage or mocking lee, you know, pretending to be angry. But that's still a very different gesture

that you're not, like, like pointing at somebody with the fist. Uh. Yeah. Actually, this is funny because I didn't go into depth in this, so I don't have the notes here, but I do remember reading and one of the things I was looking at that some cultures do use fist pointing for certain kinds of pointing in certain scenarios. Interesting Okay, Yeah, so so this would be an example where it just comes

down to cultural differences. Though I do wonder, like, certainly we have this ingrained understanding that the closed fist is violence or possession, like they're they're sort of intrinsic qualities to that uh positioning of the hand. So I wonder you know how that plays into their use of very picular forms of gesticulation. Yeah, well, I mean, I guess it. I don't know. It's very interesting that like, obviously, if you were going to physically attack someone, a fist is

more dangerous than a single index finger extended. It's like, a single index finger extended is not a real attack position, right, you know, if you were going to poke somebody like or I mean it could be, but like that, that's not how you would really hurt somebody bad a fist, right to go for the two fingers to do a proper stooge style attack, right, Um, And yet I can see how the extended finger somehow is symbolically more threatening

even though it's not physically actually more threatening, because you can at least imagine from the extended finger, there's almost like an imagined projection of a sharp point as if one has a kind of imaginary lance or stick or weapon. Yeah, I could see that interpretation. Another way to potentially look at it is if if you're if you're putting a fist at me, that's you're treating me like a you're treating me more like an enemy. That is, actually you're

gonna have to actually have to combat. But if it's a finger, it's all if you feel it feels far more objectifying, like I'm not even a physical entity with which you would actually that would actually respond to you, Like I'm something on a shelf that you can just

sort of poke around with your index finger. Yeah. And it's but it's so interesting, like why do we have that convention, Like I can't see there's anything inherently, you know, like a threatening or objectifying about pointing at somebody with an index finger. But it feels obviously wrong and and and it's just our our intuitions are run through with it. Uh.

You know. One example, interesting example is like, uh, gestures used by politicians like Cooper Wright drew my attention to the idea of the you know, the Bill Clinton thumb press. If you've seen Bill Clinton gives speeches, he does this thing where he has kind of a closed hand with a thumb protruding over the top of his curled fingers

while he talks UM. And apparently this was a suggestion, you know, an intentional change in his gestures because when Bill Clinton, he had advisors who told him that his natural tendency to point while talking was perceived by some people as aggressive or threatening, so he substituted the kind of like like closed fist thumb thing to to blunt

that potential aggressiveness. Okay, interesting, Yeah, if you if you do just an image search for thumb Bill Clinton, um, you'll see, of course a lot of examples have been given a thumbs up, but you just also see some examples of him clearly speaking while gesticulating with his thumb. And then also some images, some new but but at least some older where he's clearly talking while pointing. And yeah, you can pick up on exactly what you're talking about here.

But again, I mean, it's an it's so interesting that like, I agree with you, like the there's no inherent reason I can think of why the pointing finger would be more threatening than the fist with the um, like the fist with the thumb could hurt you more in reality, So like there's got to be some like deep symbolic association we have with the pointing finger that makes that feel like the more dangerous gesture. Yeah. I keep coming

back to this, this connection between pointing and poking. You know, uh, this objectification via poking. Um, I mean pointing is a way to instantly draw communal attention to something. It is an expedited method of demanding attention be paid, that the person UH pointed at be considered or even objectified, and the finger point at least within our current culture, it

does seem particularly objectifying. Uh. While while an open hand is much more like consider this, behold this even, but the pointing finger is more look at that, look at it right now, look at what is going on here, and judge it well. I would also say, um, there is a way in which so you can you can

imagine different gestures being given directly to viewer. Like, so somebody's looking at you and they're indicating you with a gesture, if they indicate you with an open hand versus indicate you with a pointed finger, I would say, at least intuitively to me, being indicated with a pointing finger is more un ignorably involving, like it's just like I can't

get out of this. I am drawn in now, Like whatever this person is doing, I cannot ignore it, right, And I think a great example of this can be found, uh in a in countless propaganda posters. Probably the two most famous, especially to uh like American listeners, will be the the Uncle Sam I want you for the U. S. Army, where Uncle Sam is staring right at you, pointing right at you and saying, Nope, you're the one you're joining up.

It's the the extent, it's in the index finger, the extended index finger is almost like you can't get out of this. Yeah. Another big one is the famous someone talked, uh, sister, where there's a serviceman uh, you know, clearly about to drown in the water, pointing up from the from a dark ocean, accusing us, you know, you loose lips sink

ships kind of a thing. But even outside of those, if you just do a few image searches for propaganda posters and pointing, you'll find numerous examples uh or at least a lot of European and uh you know, Russian examples where there is clearly an authority figure or a soldier, and they're pointing right at you. Uh, and there is some sort of a demand or an accusation being made,

and it's clearly a call to action. It makes me think of the end of my favorite English translation of the Rainer Maria Rilka poem, the Archaic Torso of Apollo, where the poem begins just as a description of the sculpture of Apollo from classical Greece, but then it ends with the idea that the sculpture is so powerful in its features that suddenly it has it has captured your mind and you can't ignore it, and it has implications.

The way that's realized in the poem is suddenly talking about the features of the statue turns into the phrase from here there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life. M interesting and that that kind of brings to mind not only pointing, but the the stare of the gorgon that we talked about in the Medusa episodes totally. And that's the Stephen Mitchell translation

of that poem. By the way. All right, on that note, we're going to take one more break, but when we come back we will continue our discussion of finger pointing, and we will venture back into the world of non human animals. All right, we're back, Okay. So we started off by talking about one of the early examples I used here was was my dog Charlie. How I think maybe occasionally he gets a flicker of the idea of pointing.

If I pointed something, he might look in the direction that I'm pointing, but it seems exceedingly brief and rare in his perception. And mostly when I point at something, for Charlie, he looks at my hand. It's as if my hand is doing something, not as if my hand is indicating something beyond itself. And it makes me wonder in general, do any hu do any animals beyond humans

understand that extension of the body as the direction of attention? Yeah, this is a fascinating subject because I mean, certainly, just just like your your example with your dog, my cat Mochi, she universally does not get pointing. She has no idea what pointing is about. Like, but but she does understand gays. Uh, just as your dog understands gays. Just as so many animals, as we discussed in our last episode, understand what gays means a stare is attention, and it has ramifications, uh

in terms of how animals interact with one another. But but but but when we were actually getting into um, pointing the finger. I mean, this is a level of of often thought of, as you know, human complexity, beyond merely looking at something. When I look at my cat and point at say some catnapp or some food, I'm using two different attention focusing mechanisms in unison rather than

just one. Now, um, you know, it's not just to say look at what you uh as you want, but rather look at the one you want to look at the thing you're also pointing at, you know, like it's just it's just this extra level of complexity. It's it's also a very social gesture, which is something to keep

in mind when we're considering other animals. In the words of David A. Levin's, William D. Hopkins and Kim A. Bard, it serves to quote rapidly established topics for mutual contemplation, which I think is a wonderful um way of summing it up. This is from their two thousand and five paper Understanding the Point of Chimpanzee pointing, and this was published in current directions in psychological science, and for starters,

they refer to what we talked about earlier. Children begin to point at events and objects in their environment by age one or thereabouts. Uh. They also say that it is often considered key in the acquisition of language. Pointing allows us to indicate something in the world to a child and express its linguistic name. And while we often think of pointing as a thing done in lieu of words, it functions in a different way. And I think they

sum this up nicely. Quote points do not stand for or represent the objects indicated in the way that words do. The standing for relation is termed by linguists reference in verbal reference, words that represent particular entities are not iconic. The relationship between the physical features of the word dog and actual dogs is arbitrary. In contrast with pointing, the relationship between the signal and the thing is indicated is

not arbitrary. A point specific meaning is determined in a large part by spatial locations of the pointer, the thing indicated, and the communicative partner. An act of pointing thus creates a referential triangle that incorporates distant objects into the relationship between a signaler and the recipient of the gesture. So this brings us back to our consideration of non human animals. What other animals understand pointing like this, and basically the

answer is is almost none of them. Uh. Even the great apes are closest evolutionary relatives are said to generally fail to understand pointing by humans. However, according to Levin's at all uh, who had cited earlier, it's incorrect to state that apes never point, though previously many experts considered apes to be incapable of pointing or understanding pointing. But in in these really the work of these researchers, they found that chimpanzees in captivity commonly point to unreachable food UH.

Sometimes that with their index fingers, but far more often with all fingers extended, and you can think of this as as whole hand pointing. The researchers also sometimes refer to it as reaching, but the authors argue that these are actually clearly communicative signals because the chimps will not reach for the unreachable food if there is nobody around to see them do it. That's very interesting, So it requires the presence of an audience for the for the

pointing to happen. But I do wonder there is that that kind of pointing. So and so a chimpanzee points to a piece of food that it wants that maybe a human could get for it. Is that kind of pointing? Actually, with the division we talked about earlier, imperative versus declarative, is that actually declarative or is that imperative pointing? Is that like a ritualized gesture that the ape has maybe just like learned through conditioning, can can maybe get it

the food. Yeah, it does raise a lot of questions. Apparently, I've seen it described as being something that spontaneously occurs in captive chimpanzees. Meanwhile, there are at least there seems to be very few accounts of wild apes engaging in pointing. In fact, the authors of this study identify only a single incident, a leged incident in which a benobo was observed to point twice at human observers in hiding, and this was back in But ultimately they consider chimpanzee pointing

as follows quote. The fact that chimpanzees and captivity frequently point, but those in the wild almost never do, is not merely a trivial consequence of raising chimpanzees and bizarre captive environments. Rather, it suggests that pointing by humans is written neither in our genes nor in our anatomy, but in the functional

characteristics of our social and physical environments. The harder argument to make is that pointing emerges in similar circumstances into very closely related species with similar body plans and hand anatomies, yet derives from completely unrelated psychological processes, as suggested by Provenelli at All two thousand three. When chimpanzees in captivity point to unreachable food, the overt meaning is obvious. It would be unfortunate if we failed to grasp the implicit

meaning of this gesture. Pointing is not uniquely specified by the human genome. Now. It should be noted, however, that other researchers are less sure what this is ultimately all about.

Recent articles, including context sensitive adjustment of pointing in great APPEs from have discussed that this pointing by great apes may may may, It might be associated, be an associated response to a certain set of clues food is out of reach, human is nearby, or it could be communicative communicative signal which can be adjusted to relevant aspects of

the spatial social context. So that's what I was asking about a minute ago, Like is it a real like attempt to control attention or is it like a conditioned, ritualized jure. Yeah, so you know, it seems like they're there's still some some unanswered questions here. Um, but great apes can under certain the right circumstances spontaneously take up pointing or at least, you know, the gesturing in a way that we can consider pointing. Uh. That that much

seems to be accepted. Now with other animals, there are some some interesting and occasionally I think surprising answers. So first of all, there is the domestic dog. Now you've you've already shared that with the With your dog, you don't see a lot of you don't see much in the way of an understanding regarding pointing malashes. But mostly no. Now, your dog, though, is not a It is not a

pointer dog. It's not a gun dog or a retriever dog. Okay, because this is where you do see more examples of dogs that understand pointing and even engage in a form of pointing themselves. And of course this is adapted over the course of millennia, because that's how long we've spent with dogs. They are, first of all, their social animals, and we domesticated them and estimated twelve thousand years ago.

And uh and through that time we've not only have you know, we encouraged this, we've selectively bred them to follow pointing and to themselves point at spotted prey. Now, I think our next example might first of all, it might surprise some people, but I think also the discussion around it might further illuminate, uh, you know, our understanding of of of animals and pointing and why some animals are better able to understand it. Uh. And these examples

concerned the elephant. So according to Professor Richard Byrne from the University of St. Andrew's in Scotland in a two thousand thirteen study, not only do elephants pick up on the basics of of human pointing, they don't actually need to be taught anything. They simply figure it out on their own, like they pretty much pick it up immediately.

And elephants that had spent a lot of time around humans where no like, they didn't have a particular edge over wild elephants because wild elephants also figured it out pretty quickly. Uh Burn pointed out that elephants, like humans, live in an elaborate, complex social network, one in which support, empathy,

and help for others are critical for survival. Another wrinkle on all this is that elephants regularly make trunk gestures themselves, though it is unknown of these truly serve as points in elephants society, but they maybe it's kind of an open question. The next logical creature to consider is, of course, the dolphin, and so I looked into this a little bit and according to the Dolphin Communication Project one, dolphins

are able to understand pointing without being explicitly trained. They can understand the pointing gesture even if they don't see the arm move. The form of the point by itself is enough information, not the motion. Dolphins can understand a variety of pointing forms, including pointing st eight out to the side and across the opposite side of the body, and dolphins understand how to use the pointing gesture the very first time they are tested. That's very interesting. That

makes me wonder about now. Obviously, I would think that the an animal's ability to adapt to and understand pointing gestures probably has something to do with its you know that the nature of its natural environment. And I wonder if pointing would have increased salience in a water environment

where where the directionality of movement is less constrained. Right, Like on the surface of the Earth, it's often hard to actually move up and down through space without certain conditions, like you know, something you can climb, or a whole you can go down, So movement directions are actually somewhat more tightly constrained. But in the water column you just go up down wherever. And I wonder how that affects and animals conceptualization of space and understanding of like the

geometry of movement and at tension in that space. Well, it's it's it's extra interesting potentially with dolphins as well, right, because their primary means of gesticulating is going to be with their nose, and the nose, like where you point your nose is also the direction in which you will probably be moving. Uh. Yes, so many additional considerations have to be taken. I'd love to to follow up on

this with a dolphin researcher at some point. We've been talking about, uh, reaching out to a dolphin researcher for a while, because you know, obviously we've we've done episodes that have touched on dolphin dolphin research in the past. They're amazing um biology and uh, the nature of their minds. But it would be, it would be I think they

would make for a great interview. All right, Well, looks like we're gonna have to call it there for part one of our journey through the Land of the Pointing Finger. But I am so excited to come back and and look at this for a part two. That's right, there's a there's a lot more to discuss here, you know, just in terms of the complexity of human ulture, and we may get into some more animal examples as well.

In the meantime, if you would like to check out other episodes of stuff to blow your mind, including those recent episodes about the Medusa, past episodes about dolphins, uh, you name it, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts and wherever that happens to be. Make sure you help us out. Make sure you help us out. I'm pointing at you. Rate, review, and subscribe huge things as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.

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