Spontaneous gesture and spatial language: Evidence from focal brain injury

Abstract

People often use spontaneous gestures when communicating spatial information. We investigated focal brain-injured individuals to test the hypotheses that (1) naming motion event components of manner-path (represented by verbs-prepositions in English) are impaired selectively, (2) gestures compensate for impaired naming. Patients with left or right hemisphere damage (LHD or RHD) and elderly control participants were asked to describe motion events (e.g., running across) depicted in brief videos. Damage to the left posterior middle frontal gyrus, left inferior frontal gyrus, and left anterior superior temporal gyrus (aSTG) produced impairments in naming paths of motion; lesions to the left caudate and adjacent white matter produced impairments in naming manners of motion. While the frequency of spontaneous gestures were low, lesions to the left aSTG significantly correlated with greater production of path gestures. These suggest that producing prepositions-verbs can be separately impaired and gesture production compensates for naming impairments when damage involves left aSTG.

The relationship between co-speech gesture production and macrolinguistic discourse abilities in people with focal brain injury

“…Gesture and speech also share overlapping neural substrates (e.g., Bernard, Millman, & Mittal, 2015; Gentilucci & Volta, 2008; Green et al, 2009; Willems & Hagoort, 2007; Xu et al, 2009). After focal brain injury, gesture might compensate for or facilitate speech in cases of verbal impairment (e.g., Ahlsén, 1991; Akhavan, Göksun, & Nozari, in press; Akhavan, Nozari, & Göksun, 2017; Cicone et al, 1979; Cocks, Hird, & Kirsner, 2007; Feyereisen, 1983; Glosser, Wiener, & Kaplan, 1986; Göksun, Lehet, Malykhina, & Chatterjee, 2015; Herrmann et al, 1988; Hogrefe, Ziegler, Weidinger, & Goldenberg, 2012; Lanyon & Rose, 2009; Pritchard, Dipper, Morgan, & Cocks, 2015; Scharp, Tompkins, & Iverson, 2007). Because most studies focus on people with injury to one or the other hemisphere and because they typically use different methods in their approach, it has been difficult to directly compare left and right hemispheres’ contributions to gesture-speech interactions (for a review, see Hogrefe, Rein, Skomroch, & Lausberg, 2016).…”

“…Blonder et al, 1995; Göksun et al, 2015; Göksun, Lehet, Malykhina, & Chatterjee, 2013; Hadar, Burstein, Krauss, & Soroker, 1998; Hogrefe et al, 2016; Rousseaux, Daveluy, & Kozlowski, 2010). These studies have not settled uncertainties about relative importance of each hemisphere in co-speech gesture production.…”

“…Only a few studies have investigated specific brain areas associated with spontaneous gesture production (e.g., Bernard et al, 2015; Göksun et al, 2013, 2015; Hogrefe et al, 2017). Gesture production after brain damage is frequently investigated in terms of comprehensibility or quality of gestures (Hogrefe et al, 2017) or for a specific linguistic category (e.g., spatial language gestures in Göksun et al, 2013, 2015).…”

“…Gesture production after brain damage is frequently investigated in terms of comprehensibility or quality of gestures (Hogrefe et al, 2017) or for a specific linguistic category (e.g., spatial language gestures in Göksun et al, 2013, 2015). Studies on neural correlates of gestures usually rely on settings where people produce pantomimes on command or tool-related gestures (e.g., Buxbaum, Shapiro & Coslett; Häberling, Corballis, & Corballis, 2016).…”

“…People with aphasia sometimes rely on meaningful gestures more than healthy controls (Ahlsen, 1991; Akhavan et al, in press; Béland & Ska, 1992; De Ruiter, 2006; Goodwin, 1995; Göksun et al, 2015; Herrmann et al, 1988; May, David, & Thomas, 1988; Sekine & Rose, 2013; Wilkinson, 2013). These studies suggest that gesture can compensate for verbal communication deficits.…”