This post is co-authored by Ron Riggio and nonverbal communication expert Alan Crawley. When and why do we clap? We get startled, and we clap. We try to get our dog’s (or our child’s) attention, and ...

once wondered, "Why must the show go on?" The same thought popped into mind on Thursday while observing the usually wonderful Christine Ebersole valiantly struggle to get through a staged concert ...

Social contagion If you wish to avoid the social faux pas of clapping at the wrong time, listen carefully to the volume of noise around you. That's the conclusion of a study about the social dynamics ...

Hand clapping is ubiquitous behavior for humans across time and cultures, serving many different purposes: to signify approval with applause, for instance, or to keep time to music. Acousticians often ...

Primitive though they may be, given just a simple audio recording of a single handclap, is it possible to determine the hand-configuration of the clapper via a computer-assisted digital analysis of ...

Students at the University of Oxford will now use jazz hands instead of applause as a way to be more inclusive of students who have sensory or anxiety disorders that may become uneasy by the noise ...

Applause is greatly revered as a symbol of warmth and adoration from a crowd. TV shows that film in front of a live audience often cue their audiences to clap in order to generate the desired auditory ...