Gestures Bring Attention to Learning

Communication is more than words; a message is not delivered solely based on what is said, but also on how it is said. Non-verbal behaviors and cues, such as facial expressions, posture, gestures, and eye contact, make up a large part of communication. These behaviors serve as visual cues that enhance a listener’s understanding of a verbal message. Nonverbal behaviors promote communication and comprehension, implying a significant role in learning and memory.

The research article “Language Proficiency Impacts the Benefits of Co-Speech Gesture for Narrative Understanding Through a Visual Attention Mechanism” by Elizabeth M. Wakefield and Natalia Zielinski examined how visual attention and language proficiency affect children’s ability to understand a spoken message. By tracking the eye fixation of a sample of Polish-American children, Wakefield and Zielinski found that children paid greater visual attention to gestures when a speaker told a story in Polish, their weaker language, than when the story was in English. Additionally, the heightened attention to gesture that matched the speaker’s words boosted the children’s ability to recall that point of the story. Overall, Wakefield and Zielinski’s findings revealed that gesture aids learning and memory when used appropriately and attended to.

While Wakefield and Zielinski’s findings attribute the children’s visual attention to gesture to their weaker language proficiency, arousal may also play a role. The research article “Stimulant medications affect arousal and reward, not attention networks” by Benjamin P. Kay et al. reports that medications used to treat ADHD impact the brain’s arousal and reward regions and fixed changes due to sleep deficits, implying that selective attention is influenced by physiological arousal or alertness. Daniel Greeve’s article “A systematic review of the behavioral and physiological markers of arousal, cognitive load and emotional processing in nonverbal behavior” analyzed the relationship between nonverbal behavior and arousal. His review of 69 research articles revealed that observing certain facial expressions, posture, gestures, and eye movements increased the observer’s arousal and vigilance, especially when the behaviors communicated anger or dominance. 

Together, these studies reveal how nonverbal behaviors impact learning and memory through arousal and attention mechanisms. Growing awareness of how these nonverbal communication skills are perceived can significantly impact teaching and academia in positive ways. Not only can the appropriate use of these behaviors enhance comprehension of new information, but they can also help elevate the audience’s attention to the speaker. Further insight into this topic could be especially beneficial to children struggling with attention deficits in academic settings.

References

Zielinski, N., & Wakefield, E. M. (2021). 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, 43. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/63r5d3qq.

Kay, B. P., et al. (2025). Stimulant medications affect arousal and reward, not attention networks. Cell, Volume 188, Issue 26, 7529-7546.e20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2025.11.039. 

Greeves, D. (2025). A systematic review of the behavioral and physiological markers of arousal, Cognitive load and emotional processing in nonverbal behavior. Behavior &. Law Journal, 11(2), 71-84. https://doi.org/10.47442/blj.2025.120.