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Action’s influence on thought: The case of gesture
"... Recent research shows that our actions can influence how we think. A separate body of research shows that the gestures we produce when we speak can also influence how we think. Here we bring these two literatures together to explore whether gesture has an impact on thinking by virtue of its ability ..."
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Recent research shows that our actions can influence how we think. A separate body of research shows that the gestures we produce when we speak can also influence how we think. Here we bring these two literatures together to explore whether gesture has an impact on thinking by virtue of its ability to reflect real-world actions. We first argue that gestures contain detailed perceptual-motor information about the actions they represent, information often not found in the speech that accompanies the gestures. We then show that the action features in gesture do not just reflect the gesturer’s thinking–– they can feed back and alter that thinking. Gesture actively brings action into a speaker’s mental representations, and those mental representations then affect behavior––at times more powerfully than the actions on which the gestures are based. Gesture thus has the potential to serve as a unique bridge between action and abstract thought.
REVIEW Facilitating Understanding of Movements in Dynamic Visualizations: an Embodied Perspective
, 2011
"... # The Author(s) 2011. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Learners studying mechanical or technical processes via dynamic visualizations often fail to build an accurate mental representation of the system’s movements. Based on embodied theories of cognition assumi ..."
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# The Author(s) 2011. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Learners studying mechanical or technical processes via dynamic visualizations often fail to build an accurate mental representation of the system’s movements. Based on embodied theories of cognition assuming that action, perception, and cognition are closely intertwined, this paper proposes that the learning effectiveness of dynamic visualizations could be enhanced by grounding the movements of the presentation in people’s own bodily experiences during learning. We discuss recent research on embodied cognition and provide specific strategies for how the body can be used to ground movements during the learning process: (1) making or observing gestures, (2) manipulating and interacting with objects, (3) using body metaphors, and (4) using eye movements as retrieval cues. Implications for the design of dynamic visualizations as well as directions for future research are presented.
Individual differences in frequency and saliency of speech accompanying gestures: the role of cognitive abilities and empathy
- Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
, 2014
"... The present study concerns individual differences in gesture production. We used correlational and multiple regression analyses to examine the relationship between individuals ’ cognitive abilities and empathy levels and their gesture frequency and saliency. We chose predictor variables according to ..."
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The present study concerns individual differences in gesture production. We used correlational and multiple regression analyses to examine the relationship between individuals ’ cognitive abilities and empathy levels and their gesture frequency and saliency. We chose predictor variables according to experimental evidence of the functions of gesture in speech production and communication. We examined 3 types of gestures: representational gestures, conduit gestures, and palm-revealing gestures. Higher frequency of representational gestures was related to poorer visual and spatial working memory, spatial transformation ability, and conceptualization ability; higher frequency of conduit gestures was related to poorer visual working memory, conceptualization ability, and higher levels of empathy; and higher frequency of palm-revealing gestures was related to higher levels of empathy. The saliency of all gestures was positively related to level of empathy. These results demonstrate that cognitive abilities and empathy levels are related to individual differences in gesture frequency and saliency.
Pointing and Action: Performance Effects on Remembering
"... Depending on the task at hand, pointing has been shown to sometimes help, sometimes hinder, or to simply have no effect on learning and memory. In this study we directly compared the effects of pointing and action in two visuospatial memory tasks. Twenty-seven participants were asked to remember geo ..."
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Depending on the task at hand, pointing has been shown to sometimes help, sometimes hinder, or to simply have no effect on learning and memory. In this study we directly compared the effects of pointing and action in two visuospatial memory tasks. Twenty-seven participants were asked to remember geometrical figures in three different conditions: 1) Visual Observation – e.g., looking at the figures, 2) Action – e.g., placing dots on the vertices of the figures, and 3) Pointing – e.g., pointing towards the vertices of the figures. Our results show that there is no significant difference in performance between pointing and action in recall and recognition of the geometrical figures nor did pointing for longer or shorter amounts of time affect performance. These results give direct evidence that pointing is not significantly different than action in this kind of visuospatial memory task. Our experiment did not directly involve language or problem solving but it did use stimuli that are not only coordinates but are also concrete forms. In this sense this study attempts to explore the boundaries between current research that has looked at pointing in the context of language and pointing independent of language. Although we predicted better performance for pointing in comparison to both visual observation and action we propose that the additional information that pointing may provide was not powerful enough to surpass and outperform the information acquired through visual observation and thus hindered performance. 1.1
Many hands make light work: The facilitative role of gesture in verbal improvisation
, 2015
"... a b s t r a c t Verbal improvisation is cognitively demanding, placing great burden on working memory as the speaker is tasked to generate a novel, spontaneous narrative. It is at this point of cognitive overload when individuals pursuing other creative tasks would typically shift the burden and ex ..."
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a b s t r a c t Verbal improvisation is cognitively demanding, placing great burden on working memory as the speaker is tasked to generate a novel, spontaneous narrative. It is at this point of cognitive overload when individuals pursuing other creative tasks would typically shift the burden and externalise some of their thinking. How do successful verbal improvisers manage without shifting some of their workload into an external space? We argue in this paper that the improviser makes use of what is, quite literally, to hand. Ninety participants were asked to take part in a one-to-one improvisation task and a control task, order counterbalanced, in which they were engaged in a brief conversation to elicit every day speech. Participants' gestures were analysed in both conditions and improvisations rated for quality. As predicted, participants gestured significantly more in the improvisation condition. An analysis of gesture type revealed that improvising elicited greater iconic and deictic gestures, whereas everyday speech was more likely to be accompanied by self-adaptor gestures. Gesture rate was related to the quality of the improvisation, with both the strongest and weakest improvisers producing the most gestures. These gestures revealed the extent to which participants used gestures to facilitate the improvisation task. The strongest improvisers elicited a higher gesture rate for iconic and beat gestures, while weakest improvisers produced more gestures in reference to the abstract, improvisation object. Findings are discussed in relation to the idea that gesture can facilitate performance in verbal improvisation.
Advanced Review Learning through gesture
"... When people talk, they move their hands—they gesture. Although these movements might appear to be meaningless hand waving, in fact they convey substantive information that is not always found in the accompanying speech. As a result, gesture can provide insight into thoughts that speakers have but do ..."
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When people talk, they move their hands—they gesture. Although these movements might appear to be meaningless hand waving, in fact they convey substantive information that is not always found in the accompanying speech. As a result, gesture can provide insight into thoughts that speakers have but do not know they have. Even more striking, gesture can mark a speaker as being in transition with respect to a task—learners who are on the verge of making progress on a task routinely produce gestures that convey information that is different from the information conveyed in speech. Gesture can thus be used to predict who will learn. In addition, evidence is mounting that gesture not only presages learning but also can play a role in bringing that learning about. Gesture can cause learning indirectly by influencing the learning environment or directly by influencing learners themselves. We can thus change our minds by moving our
REVIEW ARTICLE Learning from Gesture: How Our Hands Change Our Minds
, 2015
"... Abstract When people talk, they gesture, and those gestures often reveal information that cannot be found in speech. Learners are no exception. A learner’s gestures can index moments of conceptual instability, and teachers can make use of those gestures to gain access into a student’s thinking. Lear ..."
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Abstract When people talk, they gesture, and those gestures often reveal information that cannot be found in speech. Learners are no exception. A learner’s gestures can index moments of conceptual instability, and teachers can make use of those gestures to gain access into a student’s thinking. Learners can also discover novel ideas from the gestures they produce during a lesson or from the gestures they see their teachers produce. Gesture thus has the power not only to reflect a learner’s understanding of a problem but also to change that understanding. This review explores how gesture supports learning across development and ends by offering suggestions for ways in which gesture can be recruited in educational settings.
qn G Keywords: Gesture Action-understanding
"... erpr ac pre ing when movements are likely to be seen as representations. In Study 1, adults described one of three le (or a action lude a thir er which ment is interpreted not as movement directed toward an nor as movement performed for its own sake, but rather as ment that represents other types of ..."
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erpr ac pre ing when movements are likely to be seen as representations. In Study 1, adults described one of three le (or a action lude a thir er which ment is interpreted not as movement directed toward an nor as movement performed for its own sake, but rather as ment that represents other types of actions. This third type of ment is gesture. A foundational body of research demonstrates that humans interpret actions in terms of the actor’s intentions and goals
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, 2014
"... In everyday life, speech is accompanied by gestures. In the present study, two experiments tested the possibility that spontaneous gestures accompanying speech carry prosodic information. Experiment 1 showed that gestures provide prosodic information, as adults are able to perceive the congruency be ..."
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In everyday life, speech is accompanied by gestures. In the present study, two experiments tested the possibility that spontaneous gestures accompanying speech carry prosodic information. Experiment 1 showed that gestures provide prosodic information, as adults are able to perceive the congruency between low-pass filtered—thus unintelligible—speech and the gestures of the speaker. Experiment 2 shows that in the case of ambiguous sentences (i.e., sentences with two alternative meanings depending on their prosody) mismatched prosody and gestures lead participants to choose more often the meaning signaled by gestures. Our results demonstrate that the prosody that characterizes speech is not a modality specific phenomenon: it is also perceived in the spontaneous gestures that accompany speech. We draw the conclusion that spontaneous gestures and speech form a single communication system where the suprasegmental aspects of spoken language are mapped to the motor-programs responsible for the production of both speech sounds and hand gestures.