Guidelines Version 1.2024

These guidelines are intended for researchers who manually annotate non-manual elements in visual communication data.

Visual communication data are videos used to investigate visual communication between people. Visual communication includes multimodal communication (speaking and gesturing at the same time), silent gesture (gesturing alone, often in a lab setting), or sign language (e.g., Sign Language of the Netherlands). 

Non-manual elements are facial expressions, head and body movements and postures that people make while communicating. Manual elements are hand movements and configurations.

You are currently reading the prototype version of the guidelines, which were first published in September 2024. This prototype version of the guidelines was developed by Marloes Oomen, Cindy van Boven, Lyke Esselink, Tobias de Ronde, and Floris Roelofsen of SignLab at the University of Amsterdam.