Gesture Production Research Articles

The perspective during gestural executions alters hemispherical specialization

IntroductionThe left hemisphere may be particularly specialized for gestures from an egocentric movement perspective, i.e., when executing tool-use pantomime (TUP) gestures. Because nonverbal hand movements from an allocentric perspective such as motion quality presentation (MQP) gestures (i.e., when gesturing actions such as when a girl slides down a slideway) may rely on right hemispheric correlates, we contrasted such gestures with the hypothesis that TUP and MQP rely on different hemispherically lateralized functions. Methods24 right-handed healthy individuals were investigated by applying functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) above pre- and postcentral gyri of either hemisphere during three types of gesture production: (I) TUP, (II) MQP, and (III) meaningless gestures. ResultsIncreased changes of oxygenated hemoglobin (∆HbO2) were found for TUP gestures within the left hemispheric supramarginal gyrus (SMG) as well as the right hemispheric precentral gyrus and when contrasted to meaningless gestures. The contrast of MQP versus meaningless gestures resulted in increased ∆HbO2 of the precentral gyrus within the right hemisphere. No difference (∆HbO2) was found when contrasting TUP versus MQP gestures directly. Discussion: The present results demonstrate that tool-use pantomimes and motion quality presentations share motor-cognitive functions of gesture production. However, action depicting gestures may depend on the perspective during their execution. In fact, the egocentric perspective of tool-use pantomime gestures relies on left and right hemispheric functions whereas allocentric gestures may be rather grounded in functions of the right hemisphere alone.

Flexibility of Gestural Production in Captive Groups of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), Sumatran Orangutans (Pongo abelii), and Siamangs (Symphalangus syndactylus)

AbstractAcross species, communication systems may differ in their levels of flexibility, but comparisons are challenging, because flexibility is not operationalized in a consistent way. In this study, we investigated different aspects of flexibility in the gestural communication systems of 7 groups of captive apes (N = 53), including 19 chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), 16 Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii), and 18 siamangs (Symphalangus syndactylus). We operationalized flexibility in four different ways: (i) the use of one gesture type across several contexts (i.e., contextual flexibility), (ii) the use of many gesture types in the same context (i.e., pragmatic flexibility), (iii) the production of one gesture type with different limbs and/or toward different target locations (i.e., morphological flexibility), and (iv) the ability to combine different signals into a sequence in different orders (i.e., combinational flexibility). Comparisons across individuals and species revealed variation in contextual and morphological flexibility. In particular, contextual flexibility increased with age and was overall higher in chimpanzees than siamangs. Moreover, morphological flexibility increased with social integration and was highest in siamangs and lowest in orangutans. Overall, variation largely reflected differences in social experience and possibly in the socioecological characteristics of the species. Our findings suggest that contextual and morphological flexibility might be good candidates to study interindividual and interspecific variation in primate gestural production.

Predicting pointing from early socioemotional communication with mothers, fathers, and strangers through the lens of temperamental reactivity.

Socioemotional and referential communication are primary expressions of interpersonal engagement in infancy and beyond. Early socioemotional communication in dyadic interactions may form a foundation for triadic referential communication and gesture production, yet the role of temperament in moderating their association has not been examined. We investigated whether early socioemotional communication behaviors, and infant temperamental reactivity, were associated with later pointing production. Participants were 51 infants (45% girls) and both their parents (86.5% Dutch). Early infant socioemotional communication (production of smile, vocalizations, and gaze) was observed during separate home-based face-to-face interactions with mothers, fathers, and strangers at 4 and 8 months. At both ages, mothers and fathers reported on infant temperamental surgency and negative affectivity, and overall means were calculated. Referential communication (declarative pointing) was measured during structured lab-based observations at 12 and 15 months. Socioemotional and referential communication behaviors were microanalytically coded second by second. Poisson multilevel regression analyses indicated interaction effects between temperament and smile, vocalizations, and gazes to the adult's face with each partner in predicting pointing. High levels of infant temperamental surgency tended to enhance positive associations between early socioemotional communication behaviors with mothers and fathers and pointing. By contrast, high levels of negative affectivity tended to dampen associations between early communication behaviors with strangers and pointing. Results highlight the importance of infant socioemotional communication with diverse partners and the moderating role of temperamental reactivity in predicting referential communication. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

From Hands to Mind: How Gesture, Emotional Valence, and Individual Differences Impact Narrative Recall

Narrative recall and comprehension are important lifelong skills. While gesturing may improve recall by alleviating cognitive load, it may be differentially beneficial, depending on task and individual characteristics. While research on gesture’s effects on a variety of task modalities is burgeoning, effects on recall of narratives read aloud are under-examined. Further, emotional valence and individual differences in verbal memory may affect recall, through effects on task difficulty. If gesturing lightens cognitive load, it may be more beneficial for harder tasks, namely for narratives lacking emotional content and for individuals with poorer verbal memory. Across two studies, impacts of gesture production, emotional valence, and individual differences on narrative recall were evaluated. In Study 1, participants (N = 100) read aloud three emotive narratives (positive, negative, neutral) while either instructed to gesture or receiving no gesture instructions. Gesture production hindered recall, particularly for those with higher verbal memory. Emotion benefited recall, with enhanced recall of the negative narrative and impaired recall for the neutral narrative. In Study 2, following a measure of individual propensity to gesture, participants (N = 98) similarly read aloud three emotive narratives. Instructions to gesture hindered recall for participants with a lower propensity to gesture, and emotional narratives again saw enhanced recall relative to the neutral narrative. Propensity to gesture and verbal memory were positively associated with narrative comprehension. Results suggest instructions to produce gestures may for some individuals hinder recall for self-guided learners when studying written texts, while emotional content benefits recall.

Deliberate synchronization of speech and gesture: effects of neurodiversity and development

Abstract The production of speech and gesture is exquisitely temporally coordinated. In autistic individuals, speech-gesture synchrony during spontaneous discourse is disrupted. To evaluate whether this asynchrony reflects motor coordination versus language production processes, the current study examined deliberately performed hand movements during speech in youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared to neurotypical youth. Neurotypical adult performance provided a mature baseline. Participants read aloud rhythmic nursery rhymes, while producing a beat-like hand movement. An automated pixel-change video measure identified kinematic peaks; using smoothed acoustic envelope analyses, we identified peaks in speech. Results indicated few diagnostic group differences in explicit speech-movement coordination, although adolescent performance differed from adults. Adults demonstrated higher tempo and greater rhythmicity in their coordination; this group difference suggests that the method is sufficiently subtle to reveal individual differences and that this form of complex coordination undergoes ongoing maturation beyond adolescence. The sample is small, and thus results are necessarily preliminary. In the context of prior speech-gesture coordination studies, these findings of intact synchrony are consistent with the hypothesis that it is the demands of discourse planning, rather than motor coordination, that have led to prior findings of asynchrony during spontaneous speech; this possibility awaits future research.

Gesture size affects numerical estimates in quantifier comprehension.

People think and talk about numerical magnitude in terms of space, and co-speech gestures reflect this, with English speakers using expansive gestures when talking about greater quantities. Existing gestural research on the spatial conceptualization of number has largely looked at gesture production, but we do not know whether gestures can influence the interpretation of imprecise or underspecified numerical expressions such as quantifiers. Looking at the quantifier several as a test case, this study investigates the influence of manual inwards-directed (i.e., hands move closer the torso) and outwards-directed (i.e., hands move away from the torso) co-speech gestures on comprehenders' conceptualization of quantities associated with several through three preregistered experiments. Our results suggest that gesture modulates the interpretation of several such that speakers moving their hands outwards and thereby creating space between their hands lead to higher quantity estimates, compared to speakers not gesturing, or moving their hands inwards. We discuss the implications of our findings for future work in numerical cognition, multimodal communication, and pragmatics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Deictic Gesture Production in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Down Syndrome, and Typically Developing Children During Dyadic Interaction

Background: Deictic gestures are the first intentional form of communication that predict the emergence of first words. Deictic gestures include reaching, pointing, giving, and showing. Method: Forty-five Tamil-speaking children (28 male and 17 female) and their parents participated in this study. They were divided into three groups (ASD, DS, and TD). The parents were instructed to play and interact with their children, as they do at home, using the provided toy set, and this session was video-recorded. Deictic gestures such as reaching, pointing, giving, and showing were analyzed with a specific coding scheme. Results: On a Kruskal–Wallis test, a statistically significant difference across the three groups ( P < .05) was obtained for the total frequency of deictic gestures, use of pointing, giving, and showing gestures. The total frequency of deictic gestures and their types, such as pointing, giving, and showing gestures, used by the ASD group was less compared to the DS and TD groups. Conclusion: This study highlighted that, along with speech and language difficulties, children with ASD have deficits in producing deictic gestures. Children with DS have speech and language difficulties, but they use deictic gestures in order to communicate with their parents during interaction. This varied profile of deictic gesture use can be used for early identification, differential diagnosis, and setting intervention goals.

Speech-Gesture Matching and Schizotypal Traits: A Network Approach.

Impaired speech-gesture matching has repeatedly been shown in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Here, we tested the hypothesis that schizotypal traits in the general population are related to reduced speech-gesture matching performance and reduced self-reports about gesture perception. We further explored the relationships between facets of schizotypy and gesture processing in a network model. Participants (1094 mainly healthy adults) were presented with concrete or abstract sentences accompanied with videos showing related or unrelated gestures. For each video, participants evaluated the alignment between speech and gesture. They also completed self-rating scales about the perception and production of gestures (Brief Assessment of Gesture scale) and schizotypal traits (Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief 22-item version). We analyzed bivariate associations and estimated a non-regularized partial Spearman correlation network. We characterized the network by analyzing bridge centrality and controllability metrics of nodes. We found a negative relationship between both concrete and abstract gesture-speech matching performance and overall schizotypy. In the network, disorganization had the highest average controllability and it was negatively related to abstract speech-gesture matching. Bridge centralities indicated that self-reported production of gestures to enhance communication in social interactions connects self-reported gesture perception, schizotypal traits, and gesture processing task performance. The association between impaired abstract speech-gesture matching and disorganization supports a continuum between schizophrenia and schizotypy. Using gestures to facilitate communication connects subjective and objective aspects of gesture processing and schizotypal traits. Future interventional studies in patients should test the potential causal pathways implied by this network model.

Multimodal cues in L2 lexical tone acquisition: current research and future directions

This review discusses the effectiveness of visual and haptic cues for second language (L2) lexical tone acquisition, with a special focus on observation and production of hand gestures. It explains how these cues can facilitate initial acquisition of L2 lexical tones via multimodal depictions of pitch. In doing so, it provides recommendations for incorporation of multimodal cues into L2 lexical tone pedagogy.

The Development of Gesture Skills in Chinese Autistic Children: The Predictive Roles of Age and Language Ability.

Gesture delay in autistic infants and toddlers has been widely reported. The developmental trajectory of gesture production during early childhood is understudied. Thus, little is known about the possible changes of gesture production over time. The present study aimed to document the development of gesture production in autistic children and examine whether child-based factors (chronological age and initial language skills) predicted gesture development. A total of 33 Chinese-speaking autistic children (Mage = 56.39 months, SD = 8.54 months) played with their parents at four time points over a 9-month period. Their speech was transcribed, and their gestures were coded from parent-child interaction. Multilevel modeling analysis was used to investigate the development of gesture and its associated factors. The total number of gestures produced by autistic children decreased over time. Among different factors, children's initial age significantly and negatively predicted children's gesture production, while initial language positively predicted children's gesture production. Gesture delay persists in preschool age. The decline in gesture production was associated with children's age and initial language ability. These findings shed light on the difficulties surrounding gesture use in autistic children.

A preliminary study of white matter disconnections underlying deficits in praxis in left hemisphere stroke patients

Limb apraxia is a higher-order motor disorder often occurring post-stroke, which affects skilled actions. It is assessed through tasks involving gesture production or pantomime, recognition, meaningless gesture imitation, complex figure drawing, single and multi-object use. A two-system model for the organisation of actions hypothesizes distinct pathways mediating praxis deficits via conceptual, ‘indirect’, and perceptual ‘direct’ routes to action. Traditional lesion- symptom mapping techniques have failed to identify these distinct routes. We assessed 29 left hemisphere stroke patients to investigate white matter disconnections on deficits of praxis tasks from the Birmingham Cognitive Screening. White matter disconnection maps derived from patients’ structural T1 lesions were created using a diffusion-weighted healthy participant dataset acquired from the human connectome project (HCP). Initial group-level regression analyses revealed significant disconnection between occipital lobes via the splenium of the corpus callosum and involvement of the inferior longitudinal fasciculus in meaningless gesture imitation deficits. There was a trend of left fornix disconnection in gesture production deficits. Further, voxel-wise Bayesian Crawford single-case analyses performed on two patients with the most severe meaningless gesture imitation and meaningful gesture production deficits, respectively, confirmed distinct posterior interhemispheric disconnection, for the former, and disconnections between temporal and frontal areas via the fornix, rostrum of the corpus callosum and anterior cingulum, for the latter. Our results suggest distinct pathways associated with perceptual and conceptual deficits akin to ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ action routes, with some patients displaying both. Larger studies are needed to validate and elaborate on these findings, advancing our understanding of limb apraxia.

Early, typical, and late talkers: an exploratory study on predictors of language development in the first two years of life.

The consensus in scientific literature is that each child undergoes a unique linguistic development path, albeit with shared developmental stages. Some children excel or lag behind their peers in language skills. Consequently, a key challenge in language acquisition research is pinpointing factors influencing individual differences in language development. We observed children longitudinally from 3 to 24 months of life to explore early predictors of vocabulary size. Based on the productive vocabulary size of children at 24 months, 30 children met our sample selection criteria: 10 late talkers and 10 early talkers, and we compared them with 10 typical talkers. We evaluated interactive behaviors at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months, considering vocal production, gaze at mother's face, and gestural production during mother-child interactions, and we considered mothers' report of children's actions and gestures and receptive-vocabulary size at 15 and 18 months. Results indicated early precursors of language outcome at 24 months identifiable as early as 3 months in vocal productions, 6 months for gaze at mother's face and 12 months for gestural productions. Our research highlights both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, identifying the early indicators of belonging to the group of late or early talkers underscores the significant role of this developmental period for future studies. On a practical note, our findings emphasize the crucial need for early investigations to identify predictors of vocabulary development before the typical age at which lexical delay is identified.

The Basque version of the CDI-words and gestures, extended up to age 2

AbstractThe Basque version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (BCDI-1) can be used to evaluate 8–15-month-old children’s receptive and expressive verbal skills, as well as nonverbal gesture production. This paper reports on data of 1002 children of an extended age range obtained with the BCDI-1 as a proxy measure of Basque children’s communicative competence up to 24 months. Statistical analyses revealed a large effect of age on four BCDI-1 scales: phrases understood, production of gestures, receptive vocabulary, and expressive vocabulary, while sex, amount of exposure, educational level, and birth order showed small or no effect. The strong effect of age as well as the high between-scale correlations confirmed the advantage of using the BCDI-1 instrument for the extended age range.

Scope of Negation, Gestures, and Prosody: The English Negative Quantifier as a Case in Point.

The present paper examines how English native speakers produce scopally ambiguous sentences and how they make use of gestures and prosody for disambiguation. As a case in point, the participants in the present study produced the English negative quantifiers. They appear in two different positions as (1) The election of no candidate was a surprise (a: 'for those elected, none of them was a surprise'; b: 'no candidate was elected, and that was a surprise') and (2) no candidate's election was a surprise (a: 'for those elected, none of them was a surprise'; b: # 'no candidate was elected, and that was a surprise.' We were able to investigate the gesture production and the prosodic patterns of the positional effects (i.e., a-interpretation is available at two different positions in 1 and 2) and the interpretation effects (i.e., two different interpretations are available in the same position in 1). We discovered that the participants tended to launch more head shakes in the (a) interpretation despites the different positions, but more head nod/beat in the (b) interpretation. While there is not a difference in prosody of no in (a) and (b) interpretation in (1), there are pitch and durational differences between (a) interpretations in (1) and (2). This study points out the abstract similarities across languages such as Catalan and Spanish (Prieto et al. in Lingua 131:136-150, 2013. 10.1016/j.lingua.2013.02.008; Tubau et al. in Linguist Rev 32(1):115-142, 2015. 10.1515/tlr-2014-0016) in the gestural movements, and the meaning is crucial for gesture patterns. We emphasize that gesture patterns disambiguate ambiguous interpretation when prosody cannot do so.

Temporal, contextual, and relational variability of maternal mind-mindedness and child communicative development in the second year of life

ABSTRACT We report two studies that investigated the continuity and stability of maternal mind-mindedness (MM) across different times, contexts, and relationships, and also examined child communicative development in the second year of life. Three main findings emerged. First, the percentages of appropriate mind-related comments (AMRC) decreased between 16 and 20 months, while the children’s production of words and gestures increased. Second, mothers addressed more AMRC to secondborns than to firstborns, when both were tested at the same age (16 months), but firstborns produced more gestures than secondborns (both at 16 and 20 months). Third, unlike mothers’ general language measures and child communicative skills, MM was temporally, contextually, and relationally unstable. Overall, these findings suggest caution in considering MM as a stable behavioural trait. It appears, instead, that the production of AMRC may vary according to a wide range of factors.

Through Thick and Thin: Gesture and Speech Remain as an Integrated System in Atypical Development

AbstractGesture and speech are tightly linked and form a single system in typical development. In this review, we ask whether and how the role of gesture and relations between speech and gesture vary in atypical development by focusing on two groups of children: those with peri‐ or prenatal unilateral brain injury (children with BI) and preterm born (PT) children. We describe the gestures of children with BI and PT children and the relations between gesture and speech, as well as highlight various cognitive and motor antecedents of the speech‐gesture link observed in these populations. We then examine possible factors contributing to the variability in gesture production of these atypically developing children. Last, we discuss the potential role of seeing others’ gestures, particularly those of parents, in mediating the predictive relationships between early gestures and upcoming changes in speech. We end the review by charting new areas for future research that will help us better understand the robust roles of gestures for typical and atypically‐developing child populations.

Exploring Undergraduate Biochemistry Students' Gesture Production Through an Embodied Framework.

Interpreting three-dimensional models of biological macromolecules is a key skill in biochemistry, closely tied to students' visuospatial abilities. As students interact with these models and explain biochemical concepts, they often use gesture to complement verbal descriptions. Here, we utilize an embodied cognition-based approach to characterize undergraduate students' gesture production as they described and interpreted an augmented reality (AR) model of potassium channel structure and function. Our analysis uncovered two emergent patterns of gesture production employed by students, as well as common sets of gestures linked across categories of biochemistry content. Additionally, we present three cases that highlight changes in gesture production following interaction with a 3D AR visualization. Together, these observations highlight the importance of attending to gesture in learner-centered pedagogies in undergraduate biochemistry education.

Studying Motor Praxis in Children With Varying Levels of Developmental Coordination Disorder

Background and Aims This research aimed to examine the gesture production ability of motor praxis among children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and children on the verge of developing DCD and compare it to typical children of the same age and younger. Methods For this reason, 91 boys (6-12 years old) were selected as sample size and divided into five groups (20 children with typical development, 14 children with DCD, 17 children on the verge of developing DCD, 20 typically-developed children aged 8-9 years, and 20 typically-developed children aged 6-7 years). To find the children with DCD, we employed the developmental coordination disorder questionnaire 7th edition (DCDQ-7) and the Bruininks–Oseretsky test of motor Proficiency. The Dewey gesture production test was performed to investigate motor praxis. Data analysis was performed using variance analysis and an independent t test. Results Comparing the subjects’ performance in different conditions showed that their performance in transitive motor praxis was better than intransitive one (P<0.05). Also, the comparison of verbal command and imitation position showed that between the two DCD groups, the performance in the imitation movements was significantly better (P<0.05). While in the same age control group, no significant difference was seen between motor praxis in two conditions (P>0.05). The between-group comparisons showed that the performance of two DCD groups was disrupted compared to that of the control group at the same age. The performance of the DCD group compared to lower-age children with typical development (8-9 years old) was not different at the verbal command condition. In the imitation position condition, the DCD group performed significantly better than the lower-age children groups (P<0.05). Conclusion These results show that DCD subjects have developmental delays in performing motor praxis under verbal command.

Do bilingual adults gesture when they are disfluent?: Understanding gesture-speech interaction across first and second languages

ABSTRACT People are more disfluent in their second language (L2) than their first language (L1). Gesturing facilitates cognitive processes, including speech production. This study investigates speech disfluency and representational gesture production across Turkish-English bilinguals’ L1 (Turkish) and L2 (English) through a narrative retelling task (N = 27). Results showed that people were more disfluent and used more representational gestures in English. Controlling for L2 proficiency, people were still more disfluent in English. The more people were proficient in L2, the more they used gestures in that language. Similarly, disfluency-gesture co-occurrences were more common in English. L2 proficiency was positively correlated with the likelihood of a disfluency being accompanied by a gesture. These findings suggest that gestures may not necessarily compensate for weak language skills. Rather, people might gesture during disfluent moments if they can detect their errors, suggesting a close link between representational gestures and language competency in benefiting from gestures when disfluent.

Individual differences in representational gesture production are associated with cognitive and empathy skills.

Substantial individual variation exists in the frequency of gestures produced while speaking. This study investigated the associations between cognitive abilities, empathy levels, and personality traits with the frequency of representational gestures. A cartoon narration task and a social dilemma solving task were used to elicit gestures. Predictor variables were selected based on prior research on individual differences in gesture production and the cognitive and communicative functions of gestures in speech. Our findings revealed that an increased frequency of representational gestures was associated with higher empathy levels in the cartoon narration task. However, in the social dilemma solving task, a higher frequency of representational gestures was associated with lower visuospatial working memory, spatial transformation, and inhibition control abilities. Moreover, no significant relationships were found between verbal working memory, personality traits, and the frequency of representational gestures in either task. These findings suggested that predictor variables for representational gesture production vary depending on the nature of the gesture elicitation task (e.g., spatiomotoric vs. abstract topics). Future research should examine the relationship between individuals' cognitive abilities, empathy and gesture production with across a broader range of topics and in more ecologically valid contexts.