Pointing the way forward: Gesture and adults’ recall of route direction information.

Abstract

Spatial communication tasks, such as following route directions through unfamiliar environments, place considerable demands on multiple cognitive processes, including language comprehension and memory. Gestures accompanying spoken route directions may aide task performance by enhancing cognitive processes such as language and memory processing. It is not yet clear whether different kinds of gesture might influence the processing of route information in different ways. In 2 experiments, we examined how different gestures would enhance or reduce listeners' recall of spatial information when given route directions through an unfamiliar building. Adults were randomly allocated to one of three gesture conditions: no gesture (speech only), beat gesture (speech accompanied by simple rhythmic gestures), or iconic-deictic gesture (speech accompanied by iconic and deictic gestures). Recall was measured verbally, by recalling the route aloud, then physically, by walking the route. In Experiment 1, redundant gestures that mirrored verbal route directions did not enhance listeners' verbal recall or route navigation. In Experiment 2, when the verbal route directions were edited to be incomplete, nonredundant gestures enhanced recall to the level seen when hearing all information through speech. These findings suggest that gestures enhance recall when compensating for missing verbal information, but not when they replicate verbal information. Public Significance StatementThe present study suggests that accompanying spatial route direction instruction with pointing and depicting hand movements may be helpful in promoting adult listeners' memory and in improving capacity to follow route instructions, especially when the spoken instructions are incomplete. The addition of pointing and depicting hand movements to communication is a low-cost tool that may be easily incorporated into educational and professional settings, providing support for the communication of complex spatial information.

Filling in the gaps: observing gestures conveying additional information can compensate for missing verbal content

“…Indeed, educators themselves have been observed to produce a wide array of gestures when teaching students across the lifespan (Flevares & Perry, 2001;Goldin-Meadow et al, 1999;Pozzer-Ardenghi & Roth, 2004;Tian & Bourguet, 2016). Furthermore, the observation of gesture by a learner has been shown to benefit recall of verbal messages in a variety of areas, including recall of route information (Austin & Sweller, 2014Austin, Sweller, & Van Bergen, 2018), speech (Driskell & Radtke, 2003;Kelly & Church, 1998;McNeil et al, 2000), and more recently, narrative recall (Dargue & Sweller, 2018a, 2018bMacoun & Sweller, 2016). As individuals are exposed to and learn from narratives at a young age (Lynch et al, 2008), understanding how and which gestures influence narrative recall may have important implications for education and learning.…”

“…Of the limited research that has directly compared the effect of additional gestures on recall to the effect of overlapping gestures on recall, there is evidence that additional gestures may be just as communicative as overlapping gestures (consistent with McNeill, 1992). Austin et al (2018) examined the effect of overlapping and additional gestures on recall of spatial information when given route directions through an unfamiliar building. When the verbal route directions were edited to be incomplete, but the gestures were kept the same (i.e., the gestures provided additional information), recall of route directions in the gesture condition was comparable to when participants were presented with the direction both through speech and gesture.…”

Using gestures to signal lesson structure and foster meaningful learning

“…Other work has found that college students benefit from observing iconic gestures when learning statistics (Rueckert et al, 2017). Furthermore, deictic and iconic gestures can help both children and adults learn to perform spatial tasks (Austin et al, 2018; Van Wermeskerken et al, 2016). Finally, studies with college students have found that natural gestures (Mayer & DaPra, 2012; Wang et al, 2018) and pointing (i.e., deictic) gestures (Li et al, 2019; Mayer & DaPra, 2012; Wang et al, 2018) directed attention to relevant task material and improved learning (although see Ouwehand et al, 2015 for an exception).…”

Emotion and gesture effects on narrative recall in young children and adults

“…Church et al, 2004; Cook & Goldin‐Meadow, 2006; Ping & Goldin‐Meadow, 2008). Gestures appear to be especially helpful in facilitating learning and memory when the task is more complex and challenging for the learner (e.g., when very young children must understand a set of instructions; McNeil et al, 2000; or when older children learn about slopes in mathematics; Alibali et al, 2013), and have been shown to be beneficial across a variety of tasks including comprehension of speech content (Holle et al, 2010), learning of spatial route directions (Austin & Sweller, 2014, 2017; Austin et al, 2018), mathematics (Rueckert et al, 2017; Wakefield et al, 2018), problem solving (Carlson et al, 2014) and second language learning (Kelly et al, 2009; Morett, 2018; Sweller et al, 2020).…”

“…instructions; McNeil et al, 2000; or when older children learn about slopes in mathematics; Alibali et al, 2013), and have been shown to be beneficial across a variety of tasks including comprehension of speech content (Holle et al, 2010), learning of spatial route directions (Austin & Sweller, 2014Austin et al, 2018), mathematics (Rueckert et al, 2017;Wakefield et al, 2018), problem solving (Carlson et al, 2014) and second language learning (Kelly et al, 2009;Morett, 2018;Sweller et al, 2020).…”