The well-known philosopher, Charles Darwin, created the outline that movements of expression coming from the human body have a particular importance when combined with speech to reveal the thoughts and intentions behind what is being said. Darwin’s outline opened a new realm of research within many different fields. The field of neuroscience took the stance that using gestures within speech was a key part of cognitive studies while the field of psychology interpreted that gestures can be used to portray emotions when accompanied by speech.
Co-speech gestures are spontaneous hand movements that are used naturally when we communicate with others and are thought to help enhance a listener’s understanding. Through cognitive studies it was found that hand movements are powerful cognitive tools that express the details of language and thought. This being said, most research conducted on co-gesture asses the idea of language. The research article “Language Proficiency Impacts the Benefits of Co-Speech Gesture for Narrative Understanding Through a Visual Attention Mechanism,” by Zielinski and Wakefield, explores the idea that the use of co-speech gestures aiding in understanding a spoken message may be affected by the proficiency of the listener’s language. A study was conducted in children (ages 6-8) who were bilingual (Polish and English) to observe whether children benefit from gesture to interpret complex speech. The study required parents to complete a questionnaire of the child’s language proficiency, the majority were more proficient in English. They assessed whether gestures helped the ability to recall the speaker’s message by showing two videos of a passage being read, each in a different language some with scripted gestures. It was found that the children were able to recall their more proficient language but that the gestures in the less proficient language were able to help with the recalling of information. This study suggests that visual attention to gestures has positive consequences for memory and comprehension of language.
Gesturing has been found to be beneficial for language in children as well as outside of the realm of language development. The research article “Exploring the Emotional Functions of Co-Speech Hand Gesture in Language and Communication,” by Kelly and Tran, explores other cognitive studies on gesturing but also develops the emotional effects of these types of movements. The article mentions a previously conducted study that demonstrates co-speech gestures having a positive impact on children’s conceptual knowledge that may not yet be present in their speech. This study supports the ideas Zielinski and Wakefield explored through the bilingual study, as gestures were able to provide a sense of understanding in the language they were not as proficient in.
Kelly and Tran use this as a gateway into the behavioral side of gesturing by emphasizing that there are already lots of cognitive studies and that not enough attention has been paid to the emotional side. Gestures are thought to enhance a message and can create emotional meaning. For example, think of sign language and how a person who signs is able to show emotion through signing. Work on co-speech gestures has focused on emblems (gestures that have culturally acquired meaning) and adaptors (movements that involve touching the body that are connotated by negative emotions) and it is seen that these gestures reveal information about human emotion. To consider the emotional function of gestures that require speech a new program was developed. NEUROGES, is a computer-assisted system that analyzes co-speech gestures in naturalistic contexts and has been used in neuropsychology as a diagnosis aid since lower co-speech gesture production is associated with negative symptoms. It has also been used to differentiate positive and negative mood states within patients who have bipolar disorder. This created a correlation between emotional content in spoken and gestural dimensions since the gesture provided can have a different perspective than the speech being used.
Both of these articles related gesturing to cognitive learning, however one explores the emotional side of it. These studies create a connection between language, emotion, and gesture as there is growing evidence that there is a neural network connecting these topics together. Most of the time a gesture is produced with an emotional purpose and the use of a gesture may affect how people interpret language based on emotion. Combining the cognitive and emotional aspects creates a promising foundation for future research.
References:
Kelly, Spencer D., and Quang‐Anh Ngo Tran. “Exploring the emotional functions of CO‐speech hand gesture in language and communication.” Topics in Cognitive Science, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12657.
Zielinski, Natalia, and Elizabeth M Wakefield. “Language Proficiency Impacts the Benefits of Co-Speech Gesture for Narrative Understanding through a Visual Attention Mechanism.” Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 19 July 2021, escholarship.org/uc/item/63r5d3qq.
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