Author: Gillespie, M.; James, A.N.; Federmeier, K.D.; Watson, D.G.
Description: Gesture facilitates language production, but there is debate surrounding its exact role. It has been argued that gestures lighten the load on verbal working memory (VWM; Goldin-Meadow, Nusbaum, Kelly, & Wagner, 2001), but gestures have also been argued to aid in lexical retrieval (Krauss, 1998). In the current study, 50 speakers completed an individual differences battery that included measures of VWM and lexical retrieval. To elicit gesture, each speaker described short cartoon clips immediately after viewing. Measures of lexical retrieval did not predict spontaneous gesture rates, but lower VWM was associated with higher gesture rates, suggesting that gestures can facilitate language production by supporting VWM when resources are taxed. These data also suggest that individual variability in the propensity to gesture is partly linked to cognitive capacities.
Subject Headings: Female; Gestures; Humans; Individuality; Language; Male; Memory, Short-Term/physiology; Speech/physiology; Young Adult; Gesture; Individual differences; Language production; Lexical access; Working memory
Keywords: Verbal working memory predicts co-speech gesture: evidence from individual differences
Publication year: 2014
Journal or book title: Cognition
Volume: 132
Issue: 2
Pages: 174-180
Find the full text : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027714000511
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Type: Journal Article
Serial number: 2692