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Higher Mental Functions of the Brain: Language

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Examining Gesture Production in the Presence of Communication Challenges
07:18

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Published on: January 26, 2024

Gesture's role in speaking, learning, and creating language.

Susan Goldin-Meadow1, Martha Wagner Alibali

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA. sgm@uchicago.edu

Annual Review of Psychology
|July 27, 2012
PubMed
Summary

Gestures are integral to communication and cognition. This review explores how gestures aid language, learning, and thought processes, offering insights into cognition and language creation.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Linguistics
  • Psychology

Background:

  • Human communication involves both spoken language and physical gestures.
  • Gestures play a multifaceted role in cognitive processes and language development.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the contribution of gestures to communication and thought.
  • To explore gesture's role across different timescales: in-the-moment communication, learning, and language evolution.

Main Methods:

  • Review of existing literature on gesture and its relation to cognition and language.
  • Analysis of how gestures reflect, influence, and construct communicative and cognitive processes.

Main Results:

  • Gestures provide insights into speakers' thoughts, including unspoken ones, serving as a window onto cognition.
  • Encouraging gesture can alter cognitive processes, influencing learning, therapy, and problem-solving.
  • Gestures act as building blocks for language creation, observable in language acquisition and formation.

Conclusions:

  • Gestures are fundamental to human communication and cognition.
  • Harnessing gesture offers practical applications for understanding and influencing thought and communication.
  • The study of gesture provides a valuable, ever-present tool for researchers and learners in understanding language and thought.