The study of hand gestures and its relation to learning has been a topic of peculiar interest to neuroscientists and psychologists. It is human nature to use hand gestures in a variety of instances. People use hand gestures as they are speaking casually--this is usually seen to occur more frequently in certain cultures over others--and while giving a presentation or teaching in a classroom. Hand movements have been used to express emotion and emphasize certain words or phases. The importance of using gestures has been long known, and something as simple as movements within the air can make a great difference in promoting learning. However, the science that lies behind it is yet to be completely understood, which is what drives researchers to delve into this subject matter.
In the study, “Learning math by hand: The neural effects of gesture-based instruction” by Elizabeth M. Wakefield, the impact of using hand gestures within a classroom setting is examined by looking at the neural correlates when children are solving math problems. This research was conducted in order to gain more in-depth understanding of how students who learn from someone using gestures can demonstrate better performance and retention compared to the students who learn from someone using the speech-alone method. The neural underlying mechanisms were observed. Wakefield and her research team focused on children between the ages 7-9 within an educational setting. These children were learning how to solve mathematical equivalence problems and were placed into two groups: one group learned in one-on-one instructional sessions with a combination of speech and gestures, while the other group learned with only speech. This study paired a behavioral procedure with a neuroimaging procedure as the children were both asked to solve math problems after their instructional session and to participate in a twenty-five fMRI session. During the scan, children were asked to solve a series of missing addend equivalence problems. The researchers found that during the problem solving tasks, the children in the group who were taught with both speech and gestures displayed activation in the following regions such as the parietal cortex bilaterally and frontal motor regions. It was also seen that the children incorporated hand gestures themselves as they were trying to solve problems, which led them to recruit sensorimotor regions. The same regions that are used to produce other types of action everyday were activated when children processed information learned through gesture, which reinforces the beneficiality of gestures to learners.
A research study related to the previously discussed study is called, “Does Gesture Lighten the Load? The Case of Verbal Analogies” by Acacia L. Overoye. In this study, the researchers examine how hand gestures affect a speaker’s cognitive state and working memory load during a verbal analogy task. In the first part of this study, the participants were forty-four college students, who were asked to solve twenty verbal analogies on coutnerbalanced blocks. Upon solving the analogy, the participants were given a list of numbers for five seconds, asked to go back to the analogy task to explain how they solved it, and then asked to recall the list of numbers. It was found that the participants who used hand gestures during the verbal analogy task showed a significantly worse performance in recalling than participants who were not permitted to use hand gestures. Based on previous studies, it was found that people use gestures, they stimulate their visuospatial and motoric representations, which shifts cognitive load from verbal working memory to those other representations within the brain. This knowledge could be used as a possible explanation. Using a gesture adds more load to the working memory because one needs to create visopsatial representations with their hands.
Overall, both of these articles observe the impact of using hand gestures in learning. The first study by Wakefield used fMRI to understand which specific brain regions were activated when children were asked to solve problems using gestures. The second study was to understand the connection between working memory load and a problem solving task, such as a verbal analogy. The participants did not undergo brain imaging, but their behavioral processes were instead observed. However, the second study showed that using gestures while problem solving had a worse impact on one’s ability to recall a list shortly after compared to those who did not use gestures, which is interesting. This suggests that hand gestures may be helpful in certain areas more so than others, which can be an explanation for why the gesture-permitted students performed well in Wakefield’s study. Gestures have been found to be a powerful learning in some domains, which can ultimately inform further studies in this area and encourage its practice in educational settings around the world.
Works Cited:
Overoye, Acacia L., and Margaret Wilson. “Does Gesture Lighten the Load? The Case of Verbal Analogies.” Frontiers, Frontiers, 24 Aug. 2020, www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.571109/full.
Wakefield, E.M., Congdon, E.L., Novack, M.A. et al. Learning math by hand: The neural effects of gesture-based instruction in 8-year-old children. Atten Percept Psychophys 81, 2343–2353 (2019). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-019-01755-y
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