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Related Experiment Videos

Language, gesture, and judgment: Children's paths to abstract geometry.

Cecilia I Calero1, Diego E Shalom2, Elizabeth S Spelke3

  • 1Laboratorio de Neurociencia, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, Argentina; CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas), Argentina.

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
|September 1, 2018
PubMed
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Children’s early geometric understanding is often implicit, revealed through actions and gestures before words. This suggests gestures and choices are foundational for developing geometric reasoning skills.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Development
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Spatial Reasoning

Background:

  • Children exhibit early sensitivity to geometric properties for object recognition and navigation.
  • Explicit geometric knowledge develops gradually and can be inconsistent, even in adults.
  • The interplay between implicit and explicit geometric understanding remains an area of investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the developmental trajectory of implicit and explicit geometric concepts in young children.
  • To explore how children's choices, language, and gestures reflect their understanding of geometry.
  • To understand the role of non-verbal communication in geometric reasoning development.

Main Methods:

  • Assessed 132 children aged 3-8 years using a geometric judgment task.
Keywords:
Explicit knowledgeGeometrical reasoningGesturesImplicit knowledgeLanguageThought

Related Experiment Videos

  • Analyzed children's behavioral choices during the task.
  • Examined children's verbal explanations and accompanying gestures to justify their choices.

    • Main Results:

    • Children demonstrated correct geometric judgments for some properties without explicit verbal or gestural articulation.
    • Gestures often preceded the verbal or choice-based expression of certain geometric concepts.
    • Behavioral choices and gestures appear to reflect implicit geometric knowledge.

    Conclusions:

    • Gestures and behavioral choices serve as crucial indicators of implicit geometric understanding in children.
    • Development of geometric reasoning involves multiple modalities beyond language alone.
    • Findings have implications for mathematics education, highlighting the importance of non-linguistic methods.