I don't think a study like the one described can be scientific unless the person counting and characterizing the gestures was ignorant of the ethnicity of the subjects. You'd have to have a computer change their images into silhouettes or sometthing.
I was watching two Italian guys talking on a train the other day and it seened that they made about one gesture per utterance. I was thinking that confirmed the stereotype, but then I watched two Americans talking (not sure of ethnicities; one looked northern European, the other mixed Asian and white) and they also averaged two gestures per utterance.
The plural of repeatedly jab your index finger towards your interlocutor+ is +make a sweeping gesture encompassing the visible world as far as the horizon. Not!. Or, I too doubt the scientific validity of Efron's study.
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