Meaning gestures people unconsciously learn to make - unconsciously.

Case in point. About a year ago, I was watching the 'Seven Up' series (highly recommended!). The first episode was filmed in 1963; the children were seven years old. At one point, there are three or four girls together, when they are startled by something - I forget what; probably some boy doing something stupidly dangerous - in fact, now that I think of it, they might have been at the zoo; you'll see the relevance in a second - anyway, the girls, almost as one, gasp, and each thrusts her right hand flat against her chest. I was reminded of this a few minutes ago, watching Brendan Behan's Dublin (1966): at 20:24, a girl at the zoo is startled by a chimpanzee, and makes the identical gesture - gasp!, hand to chest.

I can't remember if the girls of my 1960s' childhood in southern Ontario automatically made that gesture, and I'm wondering if girls in Britain and Ireland, and beyond, still do. Observations?

And I wonder about other such gestures - gone by the wayside or still with us ....