Gesture is widely used in languages across the world and learning its role in communication has been a topic of study for many. It stands to reason, then, that one might wonder how gesture and its effects are impacted when a person's speech production and comprehension are impaired, either through a lack of experience or through neurological deficits, like those obtained in stroke or brain trauma. The implications for how they all interact are explored below.
In the article "Language Proficiency Impacts the Benefits of Co-Speech Gesture for Narrative Understanding Through a Visual Attention Mechanism", researchers Zielinski and Wakefield wanted to see if gesture would aid story comprehension in participants' weaker language. They had 17 Polish-English speakers between six and eight years of age watch two videos of actresses telling stories, and asked the participants to recall as many details as they could afterwards. One video was in English, the participants' stronger language, while the other video was in Polish, the participants' weaker language. The researchers found that gesture increased story comprehension, but only in the participants' weaker language. Additionally, they found that gesture only boosted comprehension when the gesture was repeating information that was already being said out loud. This suggests that the participants looked to gesture as a way to supplement their understanding of a spoken message in a language they were less fluent in.
What about speakers who have deficits in language production and comprehension, like those with aphasia? People with aphasia often have trouble producing language, like in nonfluent aphasia, or comprehending language, like in fluent aphasia. Some may have trouble with both. Do gestural habits change depending on the type of aphasia a person has?
In the article "A Comparison of Coverbal Gesture Use in Oral Discourse Among Speakers With Fluent and Nonfluent Aphasia", researchers Kong, Law, and Chak wanted to compare how gesture is used in healthy controls, those with fluent aphasia, and those with nonfluent aphasia. All participants spoke Cantonese in this study. The researchers extracted and analyzed video and audio data from the Cantonese AphasiaBank of healthy controls, those with nonfluent aphasia, and those with fluent aphasia. All were recounting the same stories, and all were matched for age and level of education. They found that those with nonfluent aphasia used the most gestures, followed by those with fluent aphasia, followed by the healthy controls. Specifically, the researchers found that 22.7% of those with nonfluent aphasia and 16.6% of those with fluent aphasia used gestures associated with word retrieval, compared to 0.8% in the healthy control group. This makes sense, given the fact that those with nonfluent aphasia often struggle to think of the words they wish to say. Iconic gestures (gestures that specify the spatial and dynamic attributes of objects or actions) were used more than 25% of the time in both groups with aphasia, to provide additional information not found in their speech, compared to 0% in the control group. When a speaker produced fewer complete sentences, they tended to be less fluent in speech, resulting in a higher gesture-to-word ratio.
The second study suggests that there's an awareness on the speaker's end, that in moments of dysfluency, the speaker realizes their verbal speech is lacking, and so they increase the amount of gestures they perform in order to compensate. In the absence of verbal information, the speaker replaces it with gestural information that would have otherwise been said out loud. Given that the first study revealed that listener comprehension increases when the gesture repeats information that's being said, it makes sense that gestural information would act as a substitute for verbal information in the second study. It appears that humans already have an innate ability for knowing what will allow for the most understanding and comprehension for communication, even given language deficits. Both studies show how gesture can be a useful tool in improved language delivery and comprehension. This knowledge can be extended to all sorts of fields that rely extensively on communication. Educators can incorporate more gesture into their lectures and lesson plans to increase comprehension for their students. Doctors and speech therapists can advise and teach patients with aphasia and family members to incorporate more gesture in their day-to-day interactions, as to reduce frustration and miscommunication. Video calls may be used more in international communication if just to increase understanding through gesture. These two studies show just how gesture can be used to facilitate understanding in an ever-connected world.
References:
Law, S.-P., Chak, G. W.-C., & Kong, A. P.-H. (2017). A Comparison of Coverbal Gesture Use in Oral Discourse Among Speakers With Fluent and Nonfluent Aphasia. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 60(7), 2031-2046. https://doi.org/10.1044/2017_jslhr-l-16-0093
Zielinski, N., & Wakefield, E. (n.d.). Language Proficiency Impacts the Benefits of Co-Speech Gesture for Narrative Understanding Through a Visual Attention Mechanism. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/63r5d3qq#main
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