Abstract
This is a comprehensive volume of essays aimed at understanding why people communicate using gestures. Laying the conceptual rubric of the book in Chapter 1, the editors refer to Aristotle’s (1999) distinction between the efficient cause and the final cause of a behavior. The efficient cause is something that makes the behavior occur, while final cause is the outcome of the behavior. Kelly, Church, and Alibali thereafter mention that the book focuses on both these aspects of gestures: the process of producing gestures and the goal or function of making a gesture. The book does this, moreover, “across a variety of contexts (conversation, intervention, narration, persuasion and instruction) and methodological approaches (both naturalistic and experimental)” (p. 5).
After Chapter 1’s introduction, this book is divided into three parts. The first and second parts examine gestures from the perspective of the producer and observer, respectively. The third part comments on the theoretical implications of academic research on gestures.
In Chapter 2, which starts off the first main part of the book, Alibali et al. consider Kita’s (2000) information packaging hypothesis (IPH) as a theoretical rubric for explaining how gestures help structure information into units of speech and also influence how this information is packaged. They present empirical evidence supporting the information packaging hypothesis and group this evidence into three categories: how gesture production is influenced by conceptualization difficulty, how information packaging is affected when speakers are not allowed to gesture, and how imposing certain kinds of gestures on speakers influences how speech is produced. Alibali et al. also allude to the notion of nonredundant gestures (that do not match the words spoken), and present evidence that exploration tasks in speech increase the use of such gestures. Overall, the key takeaway from this chapter is that gesture and speech emanate from disparate sources, which make them complementary. Gesture arises from “spatio-motoric thinking”, while speech arises from “analytical thinking”, and “spatio-motoric thinking can ‘find’ possibilities for organizing information that analytical thinking may not be able to ‘find’ easily” (p. 33).
In Chapter 3, the discussion enters the domain of linguistics, and this focus remains for the rest of this section. More specifically, Ozyurek establishes the connection between the structure of the language used by the speaker and gesture production. Experimental evidence is presented regarding the influence of verb semantics on the content of iconic gestures and the way manner and path are encoded in gestures describing events. The author asserts that “gestures are communicative acts, produced with communicative functions (as language) and are thus semantically and temporally linked to verbal utterances” (p. 54).
Chapter 4, by Ruiter, presents the asymmetric redundancy (AR) sketch model, and in the process, it engages in a discussion about how the communicative intention of a speaker is converted into a verbal utterance and gesture. Ruiter presents the sketch model initially, as the AR model evolves from it. According to the sketch model, the communicative intention leads to a semantic structure and visual information that are then converted into verbal message and gesture, respectively. The defect of this model, however, is that the verbal and visual aspects of the communicative intention are independent. The previous chapter had already started the discussion about how “the nature and shape of iconic gestures are strongly influenced by structural properties of the language that they accompany” (p. 61). The author, thus, presents experimental evidence regarding how gestures are shaped by the words used and the syntax of the language, how gestures and verbal messages operate simultaneously, and how gesture and speech often present similar information. Previously, Kita and Ozyurek (2003) used similar findings to formulate the AR hypothesis. Ruiter creates a comparable model, called the AR sketch model, which corrects the shortcomings of the sketch model. In addition, the new model explains phenomena such as the gesture seeming vague unless accompanied by speech, although the speech can be understood without gesture. This is because, as the model describes, gestures enhance the overall signal, but they are not an independently formed message that can operate without speech.
In Chapter 5, McNeill presents a similar argument by drawing on theories of language origin. He uses the concept of the growth point—“the smallest package of gesture-speech unity” (p. 80)—to lead the discussion. The growth point constitutes a dynamic relationship between imagery and language and gesture and speech, respectively, and it must be unpacked to interpret its meaning. A key question McNeil asks is whether the theory of language origin explains “how the imagery-language dialectic evolved and why gesture and speech are unified?” (p. 93) According to this theory, gesture evolved independently and before language. The author disagrees with this theory and argues that gesture and speech evolved together. McNeil terms his theory the Mead’s loop, named after philosopher George Herbert Mead—“there began to evolve, in the brain, a thought-language-hand link” (p. 95)—about a half-million to a million years ago. In the supplement to Chapter 5, McNeil explains himself in much greater detail through a conversation with Lopez-Ozieblo.
Chapter 6, by Cook and Fenn, starts the second section of the first part of the book. While the first section is centered on the functional role played by gesture production, the second section focuses on the impact of gestures on cognition and social interaction. So, in Chapter 6 the authors consider “the function of gesture in learning and memory” (p. 129). Cook and Fenn cite a variety of studies while commenting that gestures facilitate working memory capacity, access to infrequently used words, semantic memory, and episodic memory. Gestures also improve encoding of information and its consolidation in memory. The authors admit, however, that they are not certain about why gestures offer these benefits. They speculate that it could be due to better processing and the use of visual representations that improve memory.
In Chapter 7, by Hostetter and Boncoddo, gestures are considered as mimetic actions that allude to “perceptual-motor representations” (p. 156) that recreate the “perceptual and motor aspects” of an experience. This is an approach to cognition that takes the body into consideration, instead of looking at representations as being abstract and away from the body. The authors refer to Hostetter and Alibali’s (2008) gesture as simulated action (GSA) framework regarding how gestures might grow out of such embodied cognition. At the base of this framework is the “motor plan that comes to be expressed as gesture during speech production” (p. 157). This motor plan is triggered through the act of gesturing and reenacting the perceptual details of the representation. The authors also note that as a task is repeated, speakers become more familiar with it and do not need to use gestures as much to trigger the perceptual and motor aspects.
Chapter 8, by Nathan, introduces the action–cognition transduction hypothesis. This construct discusses the reciprocal relationship between cognition and action, such as the gestures produced by a speaker. While the influence of cognition on gestures is more widely recognized, Nathan asserts that the reverse is equally important in various contexts such as learning. So, for example, “Conceptual learning can be fostered through body movement” (p. 191).
This discussion is continued in Chapter 9, that Beaudoin-Ryan begins with the following sentence: “The gestures we produce while speaking have profound effects on how we learn from the world around us” (p. 197). Citing a series of experiments, the author considers the role played by iconic and metaphoric gestures in enhancing spatial learning. Beaudoin-Ryan concludes that through external expression, gestures allow the exploration and manipulation of spatial information. In the case of both spatial and nonspatial information, moreover, “gestures not only predict a readiness to learn, but also facilitate learning” (p. 208). Finally, by allowing the expression of multiple perspectives, gestures facilitate moral reasoning more than is possible through speech.
Chapter 10 focuses on the role of gestures in common ground contexts—primarily personal common ground and incremental common ground. Personal common ground is “knowledge shared by particular interlocutors as a result of their prior common experience or their current situation”, and incremental common ground is “the moment-by-moment exchanges that establish information as common ground within a conversation” (p. 214). Citing various studies, Holler and Bavelas note that both words and gestures reduce in number when the speaker and addressee share a personal common ground context. Gestures are less precise and shorter in duration when there is an incremental common ground context. In personal common ground contexts, gestures are used to refer to information that may not be shared or common and to reduce the need for unnecessarily long verbal explanations. In incremental common ground contexts, gestures are used to indicate that certain information may have been shared already or to “create common ground” (p. 231).
Chapter 11 by Kelly starts the second part of the book by discussing gesture–speech integration along three dimensions: first, various linguistic mechanisms like semantics, pragmatics, phonetics, and syntax; second, various analytical paradigms like social, cognitive, and biological; and third, various integration temporalities like online, moment to moment, and developmental. The results are mixed. In the case of “pragmatic, concrete semantic and suprasegmental phonetic processes” (p. 259), the gesture–speech integration is tight, while it is not quite so for “abstract semantic, segmental phonetic and syntactic processing of language” (p. 259).
In Chapter 12, Kopp answers two questions: “(1) What effects can synthetic gestures bring about in human-agent interaction? (2) What can gesture research learn from modeling and evaluating synthetic gesture” (p. 280). Regarding the first question, the answer from empirical evidence is a little scattered, but it establishes that synthetic gestures lead to the anthropomorphization of machines involved in interaction, leading to more involvement. Modeling and evaluating synthetic gesture, as asked in the second question, can “advance out understanding of the functions and underpinnings of gesture” (p. 281).
Chapters 13 to 16 consider the role of gestures in various functional contexts. Chapter 13 is focused on in-class learning and concludes that gestures are extremely useful in (re)establishing common ground between teacher and students. Chapter 14 discusses math- and science-related interaction in the classroom and concludes that imagery in gestures helps make abstract concepts more concrete and to co-construct ideas related to the lessons. In Chapter 15, the role of gestures in enhancing learning among children with clinical disorders (like language impairment and down syndrome) is discussed. As expected, the use of gestures is seen to have multiple benefits. Not only do gestures produced by children aid social interaction and learning, but adult gestures produced while interacting with children also create a positive “bidirectional influence” by eliciting imitative behaviors and supporting “language comprehension and learning” (LeBarton & Iverson, p. 344). Chapter 16 introduces a new function of gesture use during pauses in interactions. Earlier research had identified two other function of gesture use during pauses—“production oriented (gestures that help the speaker to think)” and “interaction oriented (gestures that are used to give a turn to the partner and/or encourage them to speak)” (Stam & Tellier, p. 371). The new function that is introduced is “comprehension oriented”—achieved by stressing key words using “pauses either before or after the word has been uttered” (p. 372).
Chapters 17 and 18 comprise the third and final part of this book. In Chapter 17, Novack and Goldin-Meadow explain how and why gesture differs from other actions. At the core of their argument is the distinction between gestures as representational actions and other movement as “instrumental actions, which interact directly with objects and cause physical changes to the world” (p. 381). Two other key features of gestures are identified. These are that gestures occur separate from objects and that they occur along with speech. The three main functions of gesture are the communication of meaning contained in speech, problem solving, and enhancing learning. In Chapter 18, the closing chapter, Church and Goldin-Meadow summarize the main points of the book. The first broad theme of the book is that the functional aspects of gesture are visible on multiple levels—biological, psychological, and social. Second, gesture operates across the moment-to-moment, ontogenetic, and evolutionary time frames. Third, the book explores the use of gesture in communication and thinking by “manipulating the presence or absence of gesture” and varying the “discourse contexts” and the “tasks in which gesture appears” (p. 407). The fourth theme of the book is that gestures help the producer as well as the observer of gestures.
Overall, this book offers a thorough understanding of gesture usage, and it cites a wide body of research. While somewhat difficult to read, it is nevertheless theoretically profound and extensive in scope. Why gesture should be the starting point for anyone looking to immerse themselves in the academic study of gesture or to improve their knowledge of interpersonal communication.