[4] Part of Birdwhistell's work involved filming people in social situations and analyzing them to show elements of communication that were not seen otherwise.
One of his most important projects was The Natural History of an Interview, a long-term interdisciplinary collaboration including Gregory Bateson, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Norman A. McQuown, Henry W. Brosin and others.
[5] Drawing heavily on descriptive linguistics, Birdwhistell argued that all movements of the body have meaning and that nonverbal behaviour has a grammar that can be analyzed in similar terms to spoken language.
Thus, a "kineme" is "similar to a phoneme because it consists of a group of movements which are not identical, but which may be used interchangeably without affecting social meaning.
[8] In a current application, kinesic behavior is sometimes used as signs of deception by interviewers looking for clusters of movements to determine the veracity of the statement being uttered, although kinesics can be equally applied in any context and type of setting to construe innocuous messages whose carriers are indolent or unable to express verbally.