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The Development of the Ability to Semantically Integrate Information in Speech and Iconic Gesture in Comprehension
Author(s) -
Sekine Kazuki,
Sowden Hannah,
Kita Sotaro
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.498
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1551-6709
pISSN - 0364-0213
DOI - 10.1111/cogs.12221
Subject(s) - gesture , comprehension , sentence , presentation (obstetrics) , psychology , computer science , cognitive psychology , speech recognition , communication , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , medicine , radiology , programming language
We examined whether children's ability to integrate speech and gesture follows the pattern of a broader developmental shift between 3‐ and 5‐year‐old children (Ramscar & Gitcho, 2007) regarding the ability to process two pieces of information simultaneously. In Experiment 1, 3‐year‐olds, 5‐year‐olds, and adults were presented with either an iconic gesture or a spoken sentence or a combination of the two on a computer screen, and they were instructed to select a photograph that best matched the message. The 3‐year‐olds did not integrate information in speech and gesture, but 5‐year‐olds and adults did. In Experiment 2, 3‐year‐old children were presented with the same speech and gesture as in Experiment 1 that were produced live by an experimenter. When presented live, 3‐year‐olds could integrate speech and gesture. We concluded that development of the integration ability is a part of the broader developmental shift; however, live‐presentation facilitates the nascent integration ability in 3‐year‐olds.