Hand Gestures Aid Language Learning
Study Finds Co-Speech Gestures Reinforce Meaning, Memory of Words
Words usually have no relation to what they represent, a major challenge in language acquisition. Visual relationships between word and meaning are often established using iconic hand gestures, e.g. raising an imaginary glass to the mouth to dramatize the word, “drink.”
Researchers now believe that these “co-speech” gestures play a significant role in language comprehension and development. Infants identify objects by pointing before using words; and it’s established that adults understand more detailed information when speakers add gestures to speech.
A recent study by Spencer Kelly, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Colgate University (to be published in Language and Cognitive Processes) augments existing research by exploring the role iconic gestures play in learning words in a foreign language. The study consisted of two experiments:
- Experiment 1 briefly taught 28 adults 12 Japanese verbs with and without hand gestures and followed with memory tests at five minutes, two days, and one week
- Experiment 2 explored a possible neural correlate for language learning, using three-day training sessions and measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) to words learned with and without co-speech gestures.
The main hypothesis for both experiments was that “co-speech gestures enhance language learning by linking native and foreign words through rich and non-arbitrary embodied meanings.” (1)
Colgate Study Shows Co-Speech Hand Gestures Aid Memory of New Words
Experiment 1
Experiment 1 built on previous research in four ways:
- It explored the impact of more iconic (versus purely emblematic) gestures
- It investigated vocabulary learning by having people view, but not simultaneously produce, gesture with speech
- It tested memory for newly learned words without using gestures as part of the assessment battery
- It investigated whether gestures enhance learning because of the simultaneous semantic overlap of speech and gesture or their ability to simply capture attention.
The experiment made two predictions:
- Co-speech gestures will enhance learning because of their semantic content, not their ability to capture attention
- Simultaneously distributing information through gesture and speech will produce better learning than presenting information through speech alone.
Experiment 2
Experiment 2 used similar procedures with changes to facilitate ERP testing. Video training was used to ensure that the auditory tokens of the Japanese words (reduced from 12 to 10) were identical for both instruction and testing. Hypotheses centered on whether co-speech gestures improved word recollection, familiarity, or both.
Conclusions Have Implications for Enhancing Foreign Language Instruction
In both experiments, the greatest word learning occurred when gestures conveyed redundant imagistic information to speech. In Experiment 1, gestures were found to enhance learning because of their semantic content, and not merely their ability to capture attention.
In Experiment 2, the main finding was that words learned with gestures produced a larger Late Positive Complex (indexing recollection) in bi-lateral parietal sites than words learned without gestures.
The results of the Colgate study have implications for both the development of theories of gesture-speech integration and for potential methods for improving foreign language instruction.
For a copy of the complete study, contact Anthony Adornato, Manager of Media Communications at Colgate University.
References
1. “Brief training with co-speech gesture lends a hand to word learning in a foreign language” by Spencer D. Kelly, Tara McDevitt, and Megan Esch. Department of Psychology, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, November 2008.
Colgate Associate Professor Spencer D. Kelly
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