The Semantic Specificity Hypothesis: When Gestures Do Not Depend Upon the Presence of a Listener

Abstract

Humans gesture even when their gestures can serve no communicative function (e.g., when the listener cannot see them). This study explores the intrapersonal function of gestures, and the semantic content of the speech they accompany. Sixty-eight adults participated in pairs, communicating on an object description task. Visibility of partner was manipulated; participants completed half the task behind a screen. Participants produced iconic gestures significantly more for praxic items (i.e., items with physically manipulable properties) than non-praxic items, regardless of visibility of partner. These findings support the semantic specificity hypothesis, whereby a gesture is integrally associated with the semantic properties of the word it accompanies. Where those semantic properties include a high motor component the likelihood of a gesture being produced is increased, irrespective of communication demands.

Co-thought and co-speech gestures are generated by the same action generation process.

“…Participants produce representational gestures at a higher rate when they have physically constructed the patterns than when they have only viewed the patterns. Results from these two studies are consistent with the action generation hypothesis because they show that action generation potential (Pine et al, 2010) or action generation experience (Hostetter & Alibali, 2010) can increase the production of co-speech gestures. However, in Pine et al (2010) and Feyereisen and Havard (1999), the speech contents were different when participants described the manipulable and nonmanipulable items.…”

“…Results from these two studies are consistent with the action generation hypothesis because they show that action generation potential (Pine et al, 2010) or action generation experience (Hostetter & Alibali, 2010) can increase the production of co-speech gestures. However, in Pine et al (2010) and Feyereisen and Havard (1999), the speech contents were different when participants described the manipulable and nonmanipulable items. Hostetter and Alibali (2010) did not report whether speech production differed between the action and the viewing conditions.…”

Hand and Facial Gestures in Conversational Interaction

“…However, there are several reasons to doubt the utility of this design for such a broad hypothesis. First, the results of numerous experiments on the effect of mutual visibility on overall gesture rate have been mixed, with half finding that mutual visibility leads to a significantly higher rate (Alibali, Heath, & Myers, 2001;Cohen, 1977;Cohen & Harrison, 1973;Emmorey & Casey, 2001;Krauss, Dushay, Chen, & Rauscher, 1995;Mol, Krahmer, Maes, & Swerts 2009a, 2009b and the other half finding no significant difference in overall rate (Bavelas et al, 1992(Bavelas et al, , 2008(Bavelas et al, , 2014De Ruiter, Bangerter, & Dings, 2012;Holler, Tutton, & Wilkin, 2011;Pine, Burney, & Fletcher, 2010;Rimé, 1982). Two of the latter studies found both results, depending on the kind of gesture studied (Bavelas et al, 1992;De Ruiter et al, 2012).…”

An experimental investigation of how addressee feedback affects co-speech gestures accompanying speakers’ responses

“…For quite some time, the one question that appeared to preoccupy many researchers in the field of gesture concerned their global function (i.e., inter-or intrapersonal). Nowadays, there is plenty of evidence that co-speech gestures appear to fulfil both speaker-oriented (e.g., Hostetter et al, 2007;Kita and Davies, 2009;Morsella and Krauss, 2004;Pine et al, 2010) and addressee-oriented functions (e.g., Alibali et al, 2001;Bavelas et al, 2008;Holler and Beattie, 2003b;Jacobs and Garnham, 2007).…”