Verbal Working Memory Predicts Co-speech Gesture: Evidence from Individual Differences

Overview

Journal Cognition

Publisher Elsevier

Specialty Psychology

Date 2014 May 13

PMID 24813571

Citations 25

Authors

Maureen Gillespie

Ariel N James

Kara D Federmeier

Duane G Watson

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Gesture facilitates language production, but there is debate surrounding its exact role. It has been argued that gestures lighten the load on verbal working memory (VWM; Goldin-Meadow, Nusbaum, Kelly, & Wagner, 2001), but gestures have also been argued to aid in lexical retrieval (Krauss, 1998). In the current study, 50 speakers completed an individual differences battery that included measures of VWM and lexical retrieval. To elicit gesture, each speaker described short cartoon clips immediately after viewing. Measures of lexical retrieval did not predict spontaneous gesture rates, but lower VWM was associated with higher gesture rates, suggesting that gestures can facilitate language production by supporting VWM when resources are taxed. These data also suggest that individual variability in the propensity to gesture is partly linked to cognitive capacities.

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