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Giving cognition a helping hand: The effect of congruent gestures on object name retrieval
Author(s) -
Pine Karen J.,
Reeves Lindsey,
Howlett Neil,
Fletcher Ben C
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.2011.02098.x
Subject(s) - gesture , psychology , intrapersonal communication , cognition , object (grammar) , cognitive psychology , context (archaeology) , action (physics) , communication , nonverbal communication , interpersonal communication , linguistics , neuroscience , paleontology , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , biology
The gestures that accompany speech are more than just arbitrary hand movements or communicative devices. They are simulated actions that can both prime and facilitate speech and cognition. This study measured participants’ reaction times for naming degraded images of objects when simultaneously adopting a gesture that was either congruent with the target object, incongruent with it, and when not making any hand gesture. A within‐subjects design was used, with participants ( N = 122) naming 10 objects under each condition. Participants named the objects significantly faster when adopting a congruent gesture than when not gesturing at all. Adopting an incongruent gesture resulted in significantly slower naming times. The findings are discussed in the context of the intrapersonal cognitive and facilitatory effects of gestures and underline the relatedness between language, action, and cognition.