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Movement and lexical access: do noniconic gestures aid in retrieval?
1University of California, Berkeley, California, USA. ravizza@pitt.edu
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
|November 19, 2003
Summary
Movement, even meaningless tapping, can significantly improve word recall during tip-of-the-tongue states. This suggests general movement aids lexical access, not just meaningful gestures.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Linguistics
Background:
- Meaningful gestures are thought to enhance lexical access.
- The impact of meaningless movements on word retrieval remains under-explored.
- Increased movement is observed alongside speech dysfluency.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if general movements, not just meaningful gestures, improve lexical access.
- To determine the effect of non-semantic movements on word retrieval in a tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) paradigm.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments were conducted using the TOT paradigm.
- Participants recalled rare words after viewing their definitions.
- Movement conditions included self-paced tapping versus immobility.
Main Results:
- Tapping participants showed significantly higher word resolution rates compared to immobile participants.
- Movement facilitated lexical access when it relied on automatic activation spread.
- Tapping impaired performance in tasks requiring executive functions, like letter fluency.
Conclusions:
- Movement, irrespective of semantic relation, can enhance lexical access.
- The facilitative effect of movement on word retrieval is task-dependent.
- Neural areas common to speech and movement may underlie this retrieval facilitation.