[mbivert]

> unnatural hand position

Is it really unnatural? Interestingly, as a right-handed, the two middle fingers of my right hand tend to effortlessly group together; this feels noticeably less true on my left hand, but still observable if I try to relax it.

The peculiar "mission tile" (half-cylindrical) flexibility of the palm region, encouraged by writing for example, may foster this grouping.

It's a bit surprising for the article not to address potential anatomical causes.

[w10-1]

The ulnar nerve goes to finger 4 and 5, and the median to 2 and 3 plus a branch to 4. For me, 3+4 is the most difficult combination to maintain, and raising 4 is the most difficult, but the effect (as you suggest) is strongest in the non-dominant hand.

So I interpret this position as simply the most difficult hand position to maintain, thus indicating some intention, practice, or awareness -- and thus self-control, which was considered the master virtue classically.

[onionisafruit]

I naturally keep my pinky and ring fingers together on my right hand, and I think this is a result of how I hold my phone. It made me wonder if there is an easily overlooked common activity of that time that would cause people to naturally hold their middle and ring fingers together.

Your example of writing makes sense too. Perhaps because writers were a more exclusive club then, prominently showing your subject’s hand with that finger grouping was a message in itself.

[jameshart]

I’d also consider the possibility that artists might use their own hand as a reference when detailing hands in a painting, and their own physiology might be affected by long hours working with a brush. Artists training other artists might reinforce this collective conclusion that this is a natural relaxed hand pose, because when they look at their own hands that’s often what they see.

[berniedurfee]

Yep. If I just naturally lay my hand down on something, my middle and ring fingers do tend to naturally come together.

It takes a tiny bit of intent to splay my fingers out.

Portrait artists constantly study people very closely and are likely attuned to thousands of little nuanced details that go unnoticed by most people. This is probably one.

Now I’m going to start looking at people’s hands to check their finger positions. That might have been a good exercise for the authors of the paper to determine if this is a natural hand position.

[jameshart]

I think the claim that it’s an unnatural position definitely needs justifying. A search of a corpus of modern photographs to determine the base rate for hands resting in this pose and a comparison of that to the rate depicted in renaissance art would seem to be the minimal due diligence to determine if there’s even an effect that needs explaining, before delving into the relative likelihood of Masonic symbolism.

[ricardobeat]

As an exercise, pretend you’re a 16th century lord, or just a very theatrical person, and raise your arm with a drooping hand, then gently touch your chest with your fingers splayed and wrist at an angle. Your two fingers in the middle naturally touch first, and stay together once you lay down the whole hand, exactly like in the portraits. It’s not a straining position.

I’m also surprised the paper (?) doesn’t go into simple behavioural explanations for this.

[taeric]

Agreed. I think it is somewhat uncommon to have the fingers touching, but the pinky and pointer are both much more separable from the rest.

[mordymoop]

If I absently place my hand on my chest, the resulting configuration looks just like the “unnatural” one in the painting.

[carabiner]

Maybe because you're biased having read the article? I just looked at a picture of me waving at the camera taken 2 weeks ago, and my fingers are splayed apart with even spacing.

[mordymoop]

When I rotate my hand toward my body the middle fingers come together, when it rotate it away they fan out. I can feel this happening in the tension of my muscles and ligaments during rotation. In contrast, pulling my two middle fingers together on purpose with my hand held out, without also pulling together all my fingers, feels weird. I simply think this is a mechanically likely think to happen due to the design of the forearm, though it may not be the case for everyone depending on tension and strength and anatomy.

[throw310822]

It's a pity we don't have renaissance paintings of subjects waving at the painter. While making a silly face too.

[dim13]

Same here, just a natural anatomic relaxed hand/finger position in my case.