Doing gesture promotes learning a mental transformation task better than seeing gesture

Abstract

Performing action has been found to have a greater impact on learning than observing action. Here we ask whether a particular type of action—the gestures that accompany talk—affect learning in a comparable way. We gave 158 6-year-old children instruction in a mental transformation task. Half the children were asked to produce a Move gesture relevant to the task; half were asked to produce a Point gesture. The children also observed the experimenter producing either a Move or Point gesture. Children who produced a Move gesture improved more than children who observed the Move gesture. Neither producing nor observing the Point gesture facilitated learning. Doing gesture promotes learning better than seeing gesture, as long as the gesture conveys information that could help solve the task.

What makes a movement a gesture?

“…For example, in Studies 1 and 2, we saw that movements made near (but not directly on) objects were more likely to be interpreted as a representation than movements performed in the absence of objects. Classroom teachers naturally gesture near objects (Alibali & Nathan, 2012), and most of the gesture strategies used in experimental situations to investigate the utility of teachers’ gestures have also been performed in reference to objects (Cook, Mitchell, & Goldin-Meadow, 2008; Goldin-Meadow, Cook, & Mitchell, 2009; Goldin-Meadow et al, 2012; Novack et al, 2014; Valenzeno et al, 2003). Our results suggest that part of the reason gesture may have helped children in previous studies is because the proximity of the gesture to the object it was referencing encouraged children to interpret the movement as a meaningful gesture.…”

Gesture as representational action: A paper about function

“…Thus, we believe that our framework can be applied to both situations. However, the magnitude of gesture’s effects may not be identical for doing vs. seeing gesture (see Goldin-Meadow, et al, 2012). Moreover, there might be effects on thinking and learning that depend on whether a person is perceiving or producing a gesture.…”

Gesturing has a larger impact on problem-solving than action, even when action is accompanied by words

“…There is ample evidence that the production of these gestures reflects thought (Alibali, Bassok, Solomon, Syc & Goldin-Meadow, 1999; Garber & Goldin-Meadow, 2002; Cook & Tanenhaus, 2009), predicts changes in thought (Church & Goldin-Meadow, 1986; Alibali & Goldin-Meadow, 1993; Perry, Church & Goldin-Meadow, 1988; Ping, Decatur, Larson, Zinchenko & Goldin-Meadow, under review), and even elicits changes in thought (Broaders, Cook, Mitchell & Goldin-Meadow, 2007; Singer & Goldin-Meadow 2005; Goldin-Meadow, Cook & Mitchell 2009; Goldin-Meadow, Levine, Zinchenko, Yip, Hemani, & Factor, 2012). …”

“…Moreover, encouraging learners to produce particular gestures during a math lesson makes it more likely that the learners will add the problem-solving strategy instantiated in those gestures to their spoken repertoires (Goldin-Meadow et al, 2009), and will remember what they learned during the lesson (Cook, Mitchell & Goldin-Meadow, 2008). Similarly, the types of gestures learners produce on a mental rotation task are correlated with their success on the task (Ehrlich, Levine & Goldin-Meadow, 2006), and encouraging gesture on mental rotation problems leads to improved performance in both adults (Chu & Kita, 2011) and children (Goldin-Meadow et al, 2012). Despite the widespread evidence that gesturing is linked to thinking, the mechanism(s) driving this link is unclear.…”