Gesturing Saves Cognitive Resources When Talking About Nonpresent Objects

Ping, Raedy M.; Goldin‐Meadow, Susan

doi:10.1111/j.1551-6709.2010.01102.x

Cited by 183 publications

(143 citation statements)

References 30 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

131

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Following the original finding of Goldin-Meadow et al (2001) that participants remembered more letters when they were gesturing than when they were not gesturing during the explanation, further studies have shown that this effect is independent of the type of to-beremembered items (spatial patterns vs. letters; Wagner et al, 2004) or the presence of a visual representation of the problem (Ping & Goldin-Meadow, 2010). This suggests that the effect is general and does not relate on a specific form of encoding or maintenance of information.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It varies widely among individuals and correlates with many cognitive processes, such as general fluid intelligence, problem solving, planning, or language comprehension (Engle, Tuholski, Laughlin, & Conway, 1999;Kane et al, 2004;Unsworth, Redick, Heitz, Broadway, & Engle, 2009). Recently, a few studies from the emerging field of gesture research have also related WM to the production of co-speech gestures and have shown a gesture effect on working memory-that is, an increase in WM accuracy due to gesturing (Cook, Yip, & Goldin-Meadow, 2011;Goldin-Meadow, Nusbaum, Kelly, & Wagner, 2001;Ping & Goldin-Meadow, 2010;Wagner, Nusbaum, & Goldin-Meadow, 2004). Co-speech gestures are meaningful hand movements that are semantically and temporally integrated with the speech they accompany.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Individual differences in the gesture effect on working memory

Marstaller

Burianová

2013

Psychon Bull Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Co-speech gestures have been shown to interact with working memory (WM). However, no study has investigated whether there are individual differences in the effect of gestures on WM. Combining a novel gesture/no-gesture task and an operation span task, we examined the differences in WM accuracy between individuals who gestured and individuals who did not gesture in relation to their WM capacity. Our results showed individual differences in the gesture effect on WM. Specifically, only individuals with low WM capacity showed a reduced WM accuracy when they did not gesture. Individuals with low WM capacity who did gesture, as well as high-capacity individuals (irrespective of whether they gestured or not), did not show the effect. Our findings show that the interaction between co-speech gestures and WM is affected by an individual's WM load.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences in the gesture effect on working memory

Marstaller

Burianová

2013

Psychon Bull Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, participants did better in their task when explaining mathematics (Cook, Yip, & Goldin-Meadow, 2012; Susan Goldin-Meadow, Nusbaum, Kelly, & Wagner, 2001). Even when people refer to objects that are not present, they perform better if they are allowed to gesture (Ping & Goldin-Meadow, 2010). Adding a gesture to a word is not unnatural redundancy, as it happens thousands of times a day.…”

Section: Why the Body Helps The Mindmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning a Second Language Naturally the Voice Movement Icon Approach

Macedonia¹

2013

JEDP

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Second language (L2) instruction greatly differs from natural input during native language (L1) acquisition. Whereas a child collects sensorimotor experience while learning novel words, L2 employs primarily reading, writing and listening and comprehension. We describe an alternative proposal that integrates the body into the learning process: the Voice Movement Icon (VMI) approach. A VMI consists of a word that is read and spoken in L2 and synchronously paired with an action or a gesture. A VMI is first performed by the language trainer and then imitated by the learners. Behavioral experiments demonstrate that words encoded through VMIs are easier to memorize than audio-visually encoded words and that they are better retained over time. The reasons why gestures promote language learning are manifold. First, we focus on language as an embodied phenomenon of cognition. Then we review evidence that gestures scaffold the acquisition of L1. Because VMIs reconnect language learning with the body, they can be considered as a more natural tool for language instruction than audio-visual activities.

show abstract

“…Indeed, speakers are more fluent, producing fewer errors and verbal hesitations, when they are permitted to gesture than when they are prevented from gesturing [31,32]. Gesturing while speaking also frees up working memory: speakers find it easier to remember a list of unrelated items when they gesture while talking than when they do not gesture [33][34][35]. Gesturing also provides kinaesthetic and visual feedback that can directly aid problem-solving.…”

Section: Gesture and Thoughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

A word in the hand: action, gesture and mental representation in humans and non-human primates

Cartmill

Beilock

Goldin‐Meadow

2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

Self Cite

139

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The movements we make with our hands both reflect our mental processes and help to shape them. Our actions and gestures can affect our mental representations of actions and objects. In this paper, we explore the relationship between action, gesture and thought in both humans and non-human primates and discuss its role in the evolution of language. Human gesture (specifically representational gesture) may provide a unique link between action and mental representation. It is kinaesthetically close to action and is, at the same time, symbolic. Non-human primates use gesture frequently to communicate, and do so flexibly. However, their gestures mainly resemble incomplete actions and lack the representational elements that characterize much of human gesture. Differences in the mirror neuron system provide a potential explanation for non-human primates' lack of representational gestures; the monkey mirror system does not respond to representational gestures, while the human system does. In humans, gesture grounds mental representation in action, but there is no evidence for this link in other primates. We argue that gesture played an important role in the transition to symbolic thought and language in human evolution, following a cognitive leap that allowed gesture to incorporate representational elements.

show abstract

Gesturing Saves Cognitive Resources When Talking About Nonpresent Objects

Cited by 183 publications

References 30 publications

Individual differences in the gesture effect on working memory

Individual differences in the gesture effect on working memory

Learning a Second Language Naturally the Voice Movement Icon Approach

A word in the hand: action, gesture and mental representation in humans and non-human primates

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About