Gesture is More Effective than Spatial Language in Encoding Spatial Information

So, Wing-Chee; Shum, Priscilla Lok-Chee; Wong, Miranda Kit-Yi

doi:10.1080/17470218.2015.1015431

Cited by 27 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Similarly, pointing gestures that accompany spatial words can help children attend objects or spatial properties of objects. It is also possible that these gestures can help parents to formulate their spatial thinking and talk about spatial information (So et al ., ). Thus, these gestures might serve a cognitive rather than a communicative function for the parent.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Parents’ spatial language accompanied by gestures is also related to children's use of different spatial words (Cartmill et al ., ). Gesture can be helpful for parents to communicate about space as it represents gradient information better than speech (e.g., So, Shum, & Wong, ). For example, making a flat closed hand to represent a flat object can capture the shape of the object and direct child's attention to the spatial word that marks that spatial property.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Parental use of spatial language and gestures in early childhood

Kısa

Aktan-Erciyes

Turan

et al. 2018

British J of Dev Psycho

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Parents' use of spatial language and gestures is closely linked to children's spatial language development. Little is known about the quantity and quality of early spatial input and how infants' individual characteristics may be related to the spatial input they receive. Here, we examine (1) the amount and type of spatial input 16- to 21-month-old Turkish-learning children (n = 34) received in the context of a spatial activity (puzzle play) and (2) whether parental spatial input in the form of speech and gesture varies based on children's age, sex, and early spatial vocabulary comprehension assessed in an earlier session. Results of the regression analyses showed that parents' use of spatial words was predicted by children's age over and beyond earlier spatial word comprehension and sex. In particular, parents used more spatial speech as their children got older even in this restricted age range. Children's early spatial word comprehension also correlated with parents' spatial word production. Yet, parents' overall gesture use and gestures with spatial words were not predicted by children's age, sex, or early spatial word comprehension. These findings suggest that in the spatial domain, early verbal input, but not gestural input, can change depending on children's age and children's spatial vocabulary comprehension may also be related to parental use of later spatial language. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Parents enhance their children's spatial skills using spatial language and gestures. Parental spatial talk is related to children's later spatial skills. What does this study add? We assess both spatial talk and gesture in early childhood. We examine the children's characteristics (age, sex) in relation to spatial talk and gesture. We present how children's earlier vocabulary competence relates to parental input.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parental use of spatial language and gestures in early childhood

Kısa

Aktan-Erciyes

Turan

et al. 2018

British J of Dev Psycho

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“…Arguably, enacting a grasping movement allows bringing forth procedural knowledge from previous experience, which improved performance in this task. Route learning can be improved when participants rehearse the route on a road map with silent tracing gestures (as opposed to rehearsing it verbally ;So et al, 2015). In sum, co-thought gestures are not merely epiphenomenal to cognitive processing; they seem to directly support those very processes.…”

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confidence: 97%

Co‐thought gestures in children's mental problem solving: Prevalence and effects on subsequent performance

Pouw

Gog

Zwaan

et al. 2018

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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SummaryCo-thought gestures are understudied as compared to co-speech gestures yet, may provide insight into cognitive functions of gestures that are independent of speech processes. A recent study with adults showed that co-thought gesticulation occurred spontaneously during mental preparation of problem solving. Moreover, co-thought gesturing (either spontaneous or instructed) during mental preparation was effective for subsequent solving of the Tower of Hanoi under conditions of high cognitive load (i.e., when visual working memory capacity was limited and when the task was more difficult). In this preregistered study (https://osf.io/dreks/), we investigated whether co-thought gestures would also spontaneously occur and would aid problem-solving processes in children (N = 74; 8-12 years old) under high load conditions. Although children also spontaneously used co-thought gestures during mental problem solving, this did not aid their subsequent performance when physically solving the problem. If these null results are on track, co-thought gesture effects may be different in adults and children.

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“…In contrast, if research on the production of tracing gestures is correct (e.g. So et al, 2014;So et al, 2015), such gestures are supporting visual-spatial processing (e.g. route learning) and can be effective even when no verbal content is involved (co-thought tracing; So et al, 2015).…”

Section: Gesture and Cognitive Dispositionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observation of Depictive Versus Tracing Gestures Selectively Aids Verbal Versus Visual–Spatial Learning in Primary School Children

Wermeskerken

Fijan

Eielts

et al. 2016

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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Previous research has established that gesture observation aids learning in children. The current study examined whether observation of gestures (i.e. depictive and tracing gestures) differentially affected verbal and visual-spatial retention when learning a route and its street names. Specifically, we explored whether children (n = 97) with lower visual and verbal workingmemory capacity benefited more from observing gestures as compared with children who score higher on these traits. To this end, 11-to 13-year-old children were presented with an instructional video of a route containing no gestures, depictive gestures, tracing gestures or both depictive and tracing gestures. Results indicated that the type of observed gesture affected performance: Observing tracing gestures or both tracing and depictive gestures increased performance on route retention, while observing depictive gestures or both depictive and tracing gestures increased performance on street name retention. These effects were not differentially affected by working-memory capacity.

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Gesture is More Effective than Spatial Language in Encoding Spatial Information

Cited by 27 publications

References 42 publications

Parental use of spatial language and gestures in early childhood

Parental use of spatial language and gestures in early childhood

Co‐thought gestures in children's mental problem solving: Prevalence and effects on subsequent performance

Observation of Depictive Versus Tracing Gestures Selectively Aids Verbal Versus Visual–Spatial Learning in Primary School Children

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