Midterm 1 Gestures, Movements, and Posture Flashcards
factors that renewed interest in the study of gesture
- speculation about the origins of language; Hewes for gestural origin of language
- discovery that chimps can be taught at least some aspects of sign language
- the linguistic study of sign language
gestural vs. symbolic representation in communication among great apes
- gestural rep. of a referent preceded symbolic rep. of the same referent in humans and apes
- across species, ratio of symbol to gesture increased significantly with age
definition of gesture (and “gesture vs. practical action)
- gesture: movement of the body, or any part of the body, that is considered to be expressive of thought or feeling
- diff b/t it and practical action: andrew dice clay in Pretty in Pink (becomes gesture)
types of gestures (e.g., emblems, illustrators, etc.)
- emblems: replaced with one or two words, functions just like words (peace sign)
- illustrators: need speech, pointing
- regulators: raising hand, batons-talk with hands in sync with speech
- adaptors: largely unconcious, control arousal (self + object), examples on d2l, like sucking thumb
body focused vs. object focused gestures
- object focused: expressivity, outgoing, like illustrators
- body focused: discomfort, nervousness, like self adaptors
in what ways do chimpanzees use gesture?
- show preference for gesturing with right hand, especially when vocalizing (also relates to humans)
- chimps intentionally alter their use of gesture to match the attentional focus of their human partners
development of gesture in children (e.g., as it relates to language, and parents’ gesturing)
- children’s capacity to gesture expands in conjunction with their capacity for language use
- parents produce gesture simultaneous with speech when interacting with their infants, encouraging them to decode both simultaneously
- b/t 12 and 18 months, children show intense development of gesture decoding skills, particularly response to pointing
neurological issues in gesture (e.g., brain damage and gesture; brain processing of speech and gesture)
- Broca’s Aphasia- severe impairment of speech output, also interrupts orchestration of gesture
- Wernicke’s Aphasia- severe disruption of speech comprehension, gestures lack intelligible semantic content
why do gestures aid communication?
- they contribute to the redundency of the uttered message
- they enable listener comprehension and speech production of the sender
when does gesture help listeners’ comprehension the most? (e.g., depicting motor actions)
- meta analysis of 63 studies done
- medium sized effects
- effect strongest when: gestures depicted motor actions vs. abstract concepts, are not completely redundant with speech, and the listeners are children
reasons for why people use gesture (e.g., when speech can’t be received, etc.)
- when comm. is difficult or impossible
- to substitute for speech when speech might be regarded as too explicit or delicate (Seinfeld example)
- when the spoken utterance taken by itself is incomplete (sit “here”)
- to add additional component to the utterance that is NOT represented by the words
relationship between speech and gesture
- body movements tend to match up at the beg. of phonetic clauses
- there are fewer body movements during fluent phonetic clauses
- there are more body movements during dysfluent causes
- body movements occur at the beginning of clauses
- gestures that occur at the beginning of clauses
- often carry info about the word choices
under what conditions do we use illustrators?
- face to face
- when it’s complicated
relationship between gesture and recall of material
- pirate game
- children instructed to gesture provided more correct information than other 2 conditions
- gesture reduces processing demands
- offloading allows for more allocation to retrieval
gestures grounding thoughts in action
- Tower of Hanoi task
- the more the switch groups gesture depicted moving smallest disk one handed, worse they performed
- when gestures are no longer compatible with the action constraints of a task, problem solving suffers.
gestures and word retrieval
- degraded images (e.g. airplane, microwave)
- while viewing them, subjects make gestures that are congruent with the image (e.g. flat hand with airplane)
- or incongruent with the image (e.g. clenched fist with airplane)
- how quickly can you name object: quickest response when congruent
gesture and children’s computational task performance
- video taped math lessons
- speech
- speech and gesture (sweeping motion from side to side of the problem)
- performance best in speech and gesture condition
decoding of illustrators, emblems, and adaptors
easiest to hardest:
- emblems: very well shared, agreement between encoders and decoders
- illustrators: degree to which there is shared meaning is unclear (the more iconic they are, they easier they are to understand)
- adaptors: most difficult to decode; interpretation is probably idiosyncratic(behavior peculiar to individual)
postural congruence, synchrony, and behavioral mimicry
- postural congruence: matching posture of someone you are with
- synchrony: move with people in sync with them (ex: transporter)
- sensitivity to behavioral mimicry
- greater mimicry of in group vs. outgroup and liked vs disliked
mirror neurons
- brain cells that respond equally when performing vs. observing same action
- study of experience of disgust vs. observation of disgust
the qualities of a true language (e.g., simplify original material, etc.)
- simplify original material
- organize so that the rel. between the elements is clear (syntax)
- restructure the whole for easy transmission
- no syntax in animals- found at least- in their language
is there a true body language?
no
similarities and differences in American and Indian Sign Language
ASL:
- 12 basic hand positions
- 19 config.
- 24 movements
- involves facial animation
- loose syntax
- fairly new
ISL:
- 18 hand positions
- 24 movements
- no facial expression
- very loose syntax
discrete (e.g., emblems, smiles) and categorical (e.g., forward and backward lean, body orientation) nonverbal behaviors
Discrete:
- emblems
- kinesic markers
- eye contact
- smile
- nod
- head shake
- arms akimbo
- leg position
continuous (categorical):
- gesture that accompanies speech
- posture shifting
- forward/backward lean
- body orientation
- adaptors (when under/over aroused)
