An experimental investigation of the role of iconic gestures in lexical access using the tip‐of‐the‐tongue phenomenon

Abstract

The tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state was induced in participants to test Butterworth & Hadar's (1989) theory that iconic gestures have a functional role in lexical access. Participants were given rare word definitions from which they had to retrieve the appropriate lexical item, all of which had been rated high in imageability. Half were free to gesture and the other half were instructed to fold their arms. Butterworth & Hadar's theory (1989) would predict, first, that the TOT state should be associated with iconic gesture and, second, that such gestures should assist in this lexical retrieval function. In other words, those who were free to gesture should have less trouble in accessing the appropriate lexical items. The study found that gestures were associated with lexical search. Furthermore, these gestures were sometimes iconic and sufficiently complex and elaborate that naive judges could discriminate the lexical item the speaker was searching for from a set of five alternatives, at a level far above chance. But often the gestures associated with lexical search were not iconic in nature, and furthermore there was no evidence that the presence of the iconic gesture itself actually helped the speaker find the lexical item they were searching for. This experimental result has important implications for models of linguistic production, which posit an important processing role for iconic gestures in the processes of lexical selection.

Movement and lexical access: Do noniconic gestures aid in retrieval?

“…Interestingly, the role of noniconic movements in lexical retrieval has not been explored, despite reports that all types of movements increase with dysfluency (Butterworth & Beattie, 1978;Dittmann & Llewellyn, 1969;Ragsdale & Sylvia, 1982). Indeed, Beattie and Coughlan (1999) noted that TOT trials were often accompanied by all sorts of movements, and the presence of movement was actually used to determine the occurrence of a TOT state, as opposed to reliance on self-reports.…”

“…However, some movements that accompany speech are semantically unrelated to the discourse. These noniconic movements (e.g., shifts of posture, biting of nails, drumming of the fingers) have been taken as symptoms of retrieval difficulty (Beattie & Coughlan, 1999), although only iconic gestures are thought to facilitate retrieval.…”

An investigation of co-speech gesture production during action description in Parkinson’s disease

“…On the other hand, this close connection also means that gestures could compensate for difficulties with spoken language [11]. This process can be observed in healthy speakers, for example in the context of verbal ambiguity [12] and lexical access [13].…”

52. Experimental methods in co-speech gesture research

“…Two main paradigms have been used to test this particular theory. One involves preventing speakers from gesturing followed by a subsequent analysis of the effects on verbal encoding; researchers have used various methods to restrict speakers' gestures, such as asking them to press desk-mounted hand switches (Lickiss and Wellens 1978), hold objects in their hands (Frick-Horbury and Guttentag 1998, experiment 1), or to keep their arms folded (Beattie and Coughlan 1999;Graham and Argyle 1975); however, this procedure may require the speaker to divide their attention by concentrating not only on the experimental task but also on the fact that they should not move their hands. Other studies have therefore used methods which meant that speakers were not physically able to move their hands, for example by fastening their forearms to arm rests (Rime et al 1984), by immobilising their hands in special apron pockets (Frick-Horbury and Guttentag 1998, experiment 2) or by placing electrodes on their palms while pretending that the experiment focused on the psychophysiological recordings made during the task (Rauscher, Krauss, and Chen 1996).…”

“…For example, researchers have tried to get participants thinking about certain words by providing them with the dictionary definitions (and the first letter) of a range of words (Beattie and Coughlan 1999;Frick-Horbury and Guttentag 1998) or with pictures of objects when studying tip-of-the-tongue states in children (Pine, Bird, and Kirk 2007;Yan and Nicoladis 2009). The aim was to then analyse the frequency and type of gestures accompanying tip-of-the-tongue states, and to compare the number of tip-of-the-tongue states resolved with and without gesture.…”