Open AccessSeeing and Being Seen: The Effects on Gesture Production
Author(s) -
Mol Lisette,
Krahmer Emiel,
Maes Alfons,
Swerts Marc
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of computer‐mediated communication
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.15
H-Index - 119
ISSN - 1083-6101
DOI - 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2011.01558.x
Subject(s) - gesture , affordance , gaze , language production , psychology , linguistics , nonverbal communication , communication , production (economics) , cognitive psychology , cognition , philosophy , economics , macroeconomics , neuroscience , psychoanalysis
Speakers are argued to adapt their language production to their addressee's needs. For instance, speakers produce fewer and smaller hand gestures when interlocutors cannot see each other. Yet is this because speakers know their addressee cannot see them, or because they themselves do not see their addressee? By means of computer‐mediated communication we manipulated these factors independently. We found that speakers took into account what their addressee saw. They produced more and larger gestures when they knew the addressee could see them. Seeing the addressee increased gesture production only if speakers could readily interpret the addressee's eye gaze, which is not usually the case in mediated interaction. Adding this affordance resulted in gesturing being similar in mediated and unmediated communication.