Gesture

Eve Sweetser of UC Berkeley has a review of a book by Susan Goldin-Meadow in the June 10 issue of Nature . The book is entitled Hearing Gesture and it seeks to answer several questions about the cognitive role of gesture: “is gesture really a window on thought? If it is, do most people (as opposed to just researchers) read gesture? Does gesture also help the speaker’s own cognitive processes ?Eand if so, how? And finally, what are the differences between the gestures that accompany speech and visual gestures used on their own.”

One issue examined in the book is the difference between “matched” and “mismatched” gestures, gestures that either complement or conflict with the words being spoken. Children, for instance, “say that a tall, thin container has a large volume ‘because it’s taller,’ but simultaneously make a gesture indicating width” ?Ethat is a mismatched gesture. Though matched gestures make fewer demands on listeners (because they keep the informational content relatively low), mismatched gestures have their uses: “mismatched gestures not only allow speakers to express models that are inaccessible to speech but also give listeners access to those models, with the added advantage of providing potential feedback to speakers.”

Goldin-Meadow also examines cases when gesture takes on the full burden of communication (eg, mime). In these cases, “gesture becomes ‘language-like’ . . . conventionalized, segmented and even ‘grammatized’ ?Ethe gestural systems of orally raised deaf children have a basic grammatical structure.”