Hand Preference in Adults’ Referential Gestures during Storytelling: Testing for Effects of Bilingualism, Language Ability, Sex and Age

Nicoladis, Elena; Shirazi, Safi

doi:10.3390/sym13101776

Cited by 2 publications

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References 57 publications

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“…Moreover, the tight link between articulated and gestural communication can be observed early in development, the production of pointing gestures playing a key role in the ontogeny of verbal language [239][240][241][242][243][244][245]. Population-level right-hand preferences may be observed for the production of communicative gestures in humans, i.e., for co-speech gestures [246,247] (but see [248]), for sign language by deaf adult speakers [249], as well as for deictic and symbolic gestures in preverbal babies, children and adults [3,4,[250][251][252][253][254]. Furthermore, even though no significant difference has been found between the direction of manual preference for some communicative gestures and coordinated bimanual actions in adults [251,252], the laterality observed for communicative and non-communicative manual movements seems to be related to different brain region specializations.…”

Section: A Complex Relationship Between Handedness and The Hemispheri...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Limb Preference in Animals: New Insights into the Evolution of Manual Laterality in Hominids

2022

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Until the 1990s, the notion of brain lateralization—the division of labor between the two hemispheres—and its more visible behavioral manifestation, handedness, remained fiercely defined as a human specific trait. Since then, many studies have evidenced lateralized functions in a wide range of species, including both vertebrates and invertebrates. In this review, we highlight the great contribution of comparative research to the understanding of human handedness’ evolutionary and developmental pathways, by distinguishing animal forelimb asymmetries for functionally different actions—i.e., potentially depending on different hemispheric specializations. Firstly, lateralization for the manipulation of inanimate objects has been associated with genetic and ontogenetic factors, with specific brain regions’ activity, and with morphological limb specializations. These could have emerged under selective pressures notably related to the animal locomotion and social styles. Secondly, lateralization for actions directed to living targets (to self or conspecifics) seems to be in relationship with the brain lateralization for emotion processing. Thirdly, findings on primates’ hand preferences for communicative gestures accounts for a link between gestural laterality and a left-hemispheric specialization for intentional communication and language. Throughout this review, we highlight the value of functional neuroimaging and developmental approaches to shed light on the mechanisms underlying human handedness.

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Section: A Complex Relationship Between Handedness and The Hemispheri...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Limb Preference in Animals: New Insights into the Evolution of Manual Laterality in Hominids

2022

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Hand Preference in Children’s Referential Gestures During Storytelling: Testing for Effects of Bilingualism, Language Ability, Age, and Sex

Nicoladis

Gourlay

2022

DEV

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Adults, preschool children, and infants gesture more with their right hand than with their left hand. Since gestures and speech are related in production, it is possible that this right-hand preference reflects left-hemisphere lateralization for gestures and speech. The primary purpose of the present study was to test if children between the ages of 6 and 10 years show a right-hand preference in referential gestures while telling a story. We also tested four predictors of children’s degree of right-hand preference: 1) bilingualism, 2) language proficiency, 3) age, and 4) sex. Previous studies have shown that these variables are related to the degree of speech lateralization. Twenty-five English monolingual (17 girls; Mage = 8.0, SDage = 1.4), 21 French monolingual (12 girls; Mage = 7.3, SDage = 1.4,) and 25 French-English bilingual (11 girls; Mage = 8.5, SDage = 1.4) children watched a cartoon and told the story back. The bilinguals did this once in each language. The referential gestures were coded for handedness. Most of the participants showed a right-hand preference for gesturing. In English, none of the predictor variables was clearly related to right-hand preference. In French, the monolinguals showed a stronger right-hand preference than the bilinguals. These inconsistent findings across languages raise doubts as to whether the right-hand preference is linked to lateralization for speech.

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Hand Preference in Adults’ Referential Gestures during Storytelling: Testing for Effects of Bilingualism, Language Ability, Sex and Age

Cited by 2 publications

References 57 publications

Limb Preference in Animals: New Insights into the Evolution of Manual Laterality in Hominids

Limb Preference in Animals: New Insights into the Evolution of Manual Laterality in Hominids

Hand Preference in Children’s Referential Gestures During Storytelling: Testing for Effects of Bilingualism, Language Ability, Age, and Sex

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