The catchment feature model addresses two questions in the field of multimodal interaction: how we bridge video and audio processing with the realities of human multimodal communication, and how information from the different modes may be fused. We argue from a detailed literature review that gestural research has clustered around manipulative and semaphoric use of the hands, motivate the catchment feature model psycholinguistic research, and present the model. In contrast to �whole gesture� recognition, the catchment feature model applies a feature decomposition approach that facilitates cross-modal fusion at the level of discourse planning and conceptualization. We present our experimental framework for catchment feature-based research, cite three concrete examples of catchment features, and propose new directions of multimodal research based on the model.