Gesture, Thought, and Spatial Language

Abstract

This study explored the conceptual and communicative roles of gesture by examining the consequences of gesture prevention for the type of spatial language used to solve a spatial problem. English speakers were asked to describe where to place a group of blocks so that the blocks completely filled a puzzle grid. Half the subjects were allowed to gesture and half were prevented from gesturing. In addition, half the subjects could see their addressee and half could not. Addressee visibility affected how reliant subjects were on specifying puzzle grid co-ordinates, regardless of gesture condition. However, when describing block locations, subjects who were allowed to gesture were more likely to describe block orientation and rotation. Further, gesture and speech complemented each other such that subjects were less likely to lexically specify rotation direction when this information was expressed by gesture, but this was not a conscious communicative choice because subjects who were not visible to their addressee also tended to leave rotation direction unspecified when they gestured. We argue that the complementary integration of information in gesture and speech occurred as a result of the expression of thought rather than as a result of communicative intent.