The Power of Gestures

        When communicating with one another, we often incorporate gestures to clarify, convey, or exaggerate our words and ideas. Gestures can be used in both verbal and non-verbal communication. In the Huffington Post article, “The Fascinating Science Behind ‘Talking’ With Your Hands,” Carolyn Gregoire reviews and presents research by psychologists on the power of gestures. The research discussed in this article directly correlates to recent research conducted by Dr. Elizabeth Wakefield on the impact of gestures in learning.

        Gregoire discusses research on how gesture plays an important role in the way we think and understand others. Gregoire interviews Dr. Carol Kinsey Gorman, author, and body language expert, who describes how gesturing while talking can “power up” our thinking (Gregoire). Using gestures can help us clarify our thoughts and therefore allows us to use more declarative language. Broca’s area is well-known for its role in language production but, is also partially responsible for the use of gestures in language. Dr. Kinsey Gorman describes how Broca’s area is active when wave our hands which indicates that the area also serves to control motor functions involved with language production. Gestures often highlight speakers' key points and can influence how the audience responds. 

The use of gestures has been researched in early childhood development and, according to a study published in the Journal of Child Language, can predict how a child’s vocabulary and sentence structure will later develop. Researchers studied children over several years and concluded that children using hand gestures at age 5 were able to tell “better-structured stories later in childhood” (Gregoire). Similar research conducted by Dr. Wakefield presents additional research on the importance of gestures in learning.

In Dr. Wakefield’s study published in Wiley, “Gesture helps learners learn, but not merely by guiding their visual attention,” she and her colleagues conclude that gestures facilitate learning by directing visual attention and engaging the motor system. Eye-tracking was used to detect visual attention in children learning how to solve a math problem in two conditions. Children who learned with speech and gesture conditions performed better on posttests than children with speech alone training conditions. Dr. Wakefield recently held a seminar at Loyola University Chicago where she highlighted this research on learning with gestures. 

The preceding articles and research demonstrate the importance of gestures in language and learning. Gesturing can serve as a second language for communication with one another. As more research is conducted, we gain a better understanding of the power of gesturing and its impact on communication.  

Works Cited

Wakefield E, Novack MA, Congdon EL, Franconeri S, Goldin-Meadow S. Gesture helps learners learn, but not merely by guiding their visual attention. Dev Sci. 2018;e12664. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12664 

Gregoire, Carolyn. “The Fascinating Science Behind 'Talking' With Your Hands.” HuffPost, The Huffington Post, 4 Feb. 2016, www.huffpost.com/entry/talking-with-hands-gestures_n_56afcfaae4b0b8d7c230414e?ir=Science§ion=us_science&utm_hp_ref=science.