OPEN METHODS
Tasks, definitions, assumptions, and limitations should be visible—not hidden inside a proprietary score.
Experimental • Unvalidated • Not diagnostic
THE FIRST PROPOSED FRAMEWORK
Four familiar hand gestures. One shared language for measurement and training.
The Four Gestures Project is developing an experimental neuromotor battery and a biofeedback training-game platform together—using the same gestures, timing rules, adaptive pathways, and synchronized data.
The first proposed battery begins with Squeeze, Spread, Thumbs Up, and Peace and is being designed for research involving post-stroke, traumatic brain injury, and other acquired neurological injury populations.
A concept-stage public research project. No clinical claims are being made.
OPEN-SOURCE NEUROMOTOR RESEARCH
OPEN RESEARCH CONCEPT
The Four Gestures Battery has not been clinically validated. SQUEEZE SYNC v1 is a working biofeedback training prototype. Both are being developed as linked research tracks and require technical, usability, reliability, validity, safety, and clinical study.
MISSION
Publish the idea far enough that qualified people can test it.
The project is not presenting a finished assessment. It is building a transparent research framework that can be inspected, criticized, reproduced, adapted, and—only if the evidence supports it—validated.
That means publishing the software, proposed protocols, sensing pathways, measurement definitions, synthetic examples, unanswered questions, and clinical boundaries together.
ADAPTIVE ACCESS
Participants should enter meaningful tasks through the voluntary movements they can access.
SYNCHRONIZED DATA
Cue timing, muscle activation, physical contact, and movement can be aligned within one task timeline.
VALIDATION FIRST
A useful interface is not evidence of clinical validity. The project must earn every claim through research.
THE FOUR GESTURES BATTERY
A small gesture set designed to support deeper task variation.
The gestures are intentionally familiar and limited. Measurement depth comes from changing the rule around them: reaction, rhythm, inhibition, selection, endurance, sequence, and switching.
01
Activation + release
Squeeze
Gross closing, voluntary activation, holding, endurance, and release.
02
Opening + reciprocity
Spread
Active opening, finger separation, reciprocal control, and switching away from flexion.
03
Selective extension
Thumbs Up
Selective thumb extension and organization while the other digits remain controlled.
04
Individuation + inhibition
Peace
Selective index–middle finger extension and separation, with suppression of competing movement.
WHY A GESTURE MAY CONTAIN INFORMATION
A movement is the visible end of a longer neuromotor chain.
No single delay identifies its neurological cause. The research proposition is that standardized tasks, synchronized sensing, and repeated comparisons may create a useful descriptive profile of performance.
- 01Cue
- 02Perception + comprehension
- 03Action selection
- 04Motor planning
- 05Muscle activation
- 06Visible movement
- 07Hold, release, or switch
THE ADAPTIVE PRINCIPLE
The battery should branch, not fail.
A participant should not receive a meaningless failure merely because a more selective gesture is inaccessible. The proposed battery routes into tasks that remain physically and cognitively meaningful.
GESTURE ACCESS CHECK
CORE PROPOSITIONGesture availability is itself data.
Routing should preserve participation while documenting what was and was not voluntarily accessible at that moment.
FOUR MEASUREMENT LEVELS
One task engine, with increasing sensing depth.
Each level should add information without changing the core gesture language. That allows the project to begin with accessible hardware and expand into richer kinematic measurement.
01
Single-channel forearm EMG
The accessible entry level for measuring voluntary muscle activation over time.
- Resting signal
- Activation onset
- Relative amplitude
- Holding and release
- Rhythm and repetition
02
Dual-channel forearm EMG
Adds comparison between flexor- and extensor-oriented activity.
- Squeeze versus spread dynamics
- Reciprocal recruitment
- Co-contraction
- Transition timing
- Movement-classification research
03
Hand Box plus EMG
Adds a standardized physical interaction to the same task engine.
- Contact events
- Pressure events
- Grip and release timing
- Hand placement
- Simple movement confirmation
04
Motion-capture glove plus EMG
Synchronizes muscle activation with finger and joint movement.
- Pose verification
- Gesture formation time
- Digit trajectories
- Finger individuation
- Hold, release, and switching
MEASUREMENT + TRAINING, BUILT TOGETHER
Measure and train in the same gesture language.
The Four Gestures Battery and the SQUEEZE SYNC software platform are being developed concurrently as two linked parts of the same research program. The battery defines standardized ways to observe voluntary access, timing, control, release, inhibition, sequencing, and switching. SQUEEZE SYNC turns those same task elements into repeatable biofeedback practice.
Developing measurement and training together creates a practical research loop. Structured practice sessions can produce repeated observations, while findings from development and formal research can refine both the proposed battery and the training experience.
Describe performance
Standardized cues, gesture-access branching, synchronized sensing, and transparent task definitions are being developed to describe how a movement is initiated, held, released, repeated, selected, or switched.
Practice performance
The training platform uses immediate visual feedback, rhythm, progression, repetition, and game-like structure to make daily neuromotor practice more understandable and motivating.
Why build both?
Rehabilitation is difficult, repetition is essential, and motivation can be sparse. The long-term research goal is a transparent platform that can support frequent practice in specialized rehabilitation settings and, where evidence, safety, and appropriate guidance allow, more accessible use at home.
This is a research direction—not a claim that the battery diagnoses a condition or that SQUEEZE SYNC has established therapeutic efficacy.WHAT EXISTS NOW
A measurement framework and training platform being built together.
SQUEEZE SYNC is the first working training prototype. The wider battery, additional gesture modules, sensing levels, and clinical research program remain proposed and unvalidated.
SQUEEZE SYNCv1 • PRACTICE MODE
SQUEEZEFOLLOW THE RHYTHM
WORKING RESEARCH PROTOTYPE
SQUEEZE SYNC v1
A standalone biofeedback training-game prototype supporting Practice Mode, serial EMG input, guided calibration, squeeze–release rhythm tasks, immediate visual feedback, progressive repetition, and timestamped session outputs.
It is being developed alongside the battery so the same task language can support both structured observation and repeatable practice. Its thresholds, usability, safety, and training effects still require formal testing.
THE FOUR GESTURES PROJECT
Project Guide
OPEN-SOURCE NEUROMOTOR RESEARCHVERSION 1 PUBLIC GUIDE
The project guide
The canonical public guide is now available. It summarizes the battery, the four measurement levels, the linked SQUEEZE SYNC platform, and the project’s current clinical boundaries.
- Five-minute clinical brief
- Adaptive battery rationale
- Measurement + training architecture
- Safety, ethics, and clinical boundaries
WHAT STILL NEEDS TO BE BUILT + VALIDATED
The roadmap is not a completion percentage.
Software can become functional quickly. A research framework becomes credible only through careful testing, comparison, revision, and independent scrutiny.
Software
- Spread, Thumbs Up, and Peace training modules
- Shared battery and training task engine
- Adaptive routing and difficulty
- Standardized exports and reporting
- Accessibility and fatigue controls
Hardware
- Dual-channel EMG workflow
- Hand Box prototype
- Motion-glove adapter
- Sensor synchronization
- Placement and calibration documentation
Research
- Feasibility and signal reliability
- Test–retest and inter-rater reliability
- Construct and convergent validity
- Responsiveness to change
- Patient and clinician usability
CONTRIBUTE
The next useful contribution may be a critique, not a feature.
The project is seeking qualified review across clinical practice, research design, engineering, accessibility, lived experience, ethics, and institutional implementation.
Clinicians
Identify unsafe assumptions, workflow barriers, missing confounds, and outcomes that would or would not be clinically meaningful.
Researchers
Challenge the construct definitions, propose feasible studies, and help distinguish descriptive metrics from validated outcomes.
Engineers
Improve sensing, synchronization, calibration, signal quality, hardware documentation, and reproducibility.
Patients + lived experience
Review burden, dignity, clarity, fatigue, accessibility, consent, and whether the interaction feels supportive rather than judgmental.
Advocates
Examine language, inclusion, motor access, cognitive load, privacy, and the social consequences of measurement.
Supporters + institutions
Connect the project with qualified collaborators, facilities, equipment, review pathways, and responsible funding.
A SIMPLE FIRST ACTION
Know someone who should see this?
Share the project with one clinician, researcher, engineer, patient advocate, or institution capable of identifying what is promising—and what is wrong.
PROJECT GUIDE
Read the complete proposed framework.
The canonical Four Gestures Project Guide is now available as a public PDF. It includes the clinical brief, rationale, adaptive task architecture, four measurement levels, linked SQUEEZE SYNC platform framing, and current clinical boundaries.
- Status
- Version 1 public guide
- Format
- Public PDF
- Classification
- Concept-stage research document
- Clinical validity
- Not established
FOUR GESTURES PROJECT GUIDEVersion 1 readyDownload project guide
CONTACT THE PROJECT
Tell us what you can challenge, test, build, or connect.
The most useful message is specific. Describe your background, what part of the framework interests you, and where you see a practical contribution or critical problem.
Not a clinical contact channel
Do not request diagnosis, treatment, medical interpretation, or emergency help. Do not include patient records or identifying clinical information.
CLINICAL + RESEARCH DISCLAIMER
Experimental and unvalidated.
The Four Gestures Battery, SQUEEZE SYNC, and all related protocols, software, hardware concepts, measurement definitions, and reports are experimental and unvalidated. They are not intended to diagnose, screen for, confirm, exclude, classify, localize, prognosticate, or guide treatment for stroke, traumatic brain injury, neurological injury, cognitive impairment, or any other condition.
The project does not replace neurological examination, rehabilitation assessment, medical imaging, neuropsychological testing, established outcome measures, or professional clinical judgment.
Any research involving human participants should occur only through appropriately qualified teams and applicable institutional, ethical, privacy, consent, safety, and regulatory processes.