The Influences of Cognitive Load on Co-speech and Co-thought Gestures for Conceptualization

• Main Authors: YANG, CHENG-XIANG, 楊程翔
• Other Authors: LIN, YEN-LIANG
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/7vgzux

碩士 === 國立臺北科技大學 === 應用英文系 === 107 === There is disagreement in the literature as to whether cognitive load influences gesture. While some hold that increasing of cognitive load causes more production in gesture (e.g., Melinger & Kita, 2007), others argue that mental simulation increases the production of gestures (Sassenberg & Van Der Meer, 2010). Conversely, use of gestures has been shown to be a mechanism to decrease cognitive load (e.g., Goldin-Meadow, Nusbaum, Kelly, & Wagner, 2001). Similar to co-speech gesture, co-thought gesture is found to reflect problem solving strategies (Alibali, Spencer, Knox, & Kita, 2011) and enhance problem solving performance (Chu & Kita, 2011). Encapsulating this, the Gesture-for-Conceptualization Hypothesis (Kita, Alibali, & Chu, 2017) proposes four conceptual functions: gestures (1) activate, (2) manipulate, (3) package, and (4) explore spatio-motoric information. However, to date most studies have only examined gesture occurrence and not gesture duration. Building on existing research but including duration as a variable, this study aimed to: (1) clarify whether increased cognitive load changed gesture frequency and duration, (2) describe the functions of the gestures observed, and (3) understand how types of gestures correspond to specific functions. Twenty participants were recruited and required to retell the story in English after watching a pre-determined cartoon. In order to distinguish task complexity, participants were separated into two equal groups: one group was given a structure for story re-telling, while the other was not. The results of this study showed that: (1) increased cognitive load (task structure) significantly influenced the frequency and the duration of co-speech gesture; (2) the frequency of co-thought gestures was influenced while duration was not; (3) activation dominated in iconic, metaphoric, and deictic gesturesalthough iconic gestures were shown to have a closer relationship to packaging, metaphoric gestures to manipulation, and deictic gestures to exploration; and (4) co-thought gestures mostly functioned as exploration. This study provides necessary clarification on the relationship between cognitive load and gestures, including novel interactions of gesture duration and gesture function.