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Go into any busy coffee shop and you are likely to see people engrossed in conversation, waving their hands around. A man at the counter describes the coffee he wants to buy – in a mug, not a to-go cup – and his hand takes a familiar shape, as if he were already holding the cozy mug. Nearby, two sisters laugh, as one tells a story about a trip to the barrier reef and all of the fish that she saw, her hands wiggling and darting in an invisible sea in front of her. The drive to gesture when speaking is fundamental to human nature.
If you have thought about why we gesture you probably assumed that we gesture to help others understand what we are saying. Pretending to hold a ceramic mug can help the barista understand exactly which mug you want. Showing how the fish darted to and fro can help your sister get a more vivid picture of what the reef looked like to you.
But might gesture also serve another purpose? Many scientists now think that gestures can help the person making them -- that moving your hands can help you think. Researchers have become increasingly interested in the connection between the body and thought – in the ways that our physical body shapes abstract mental processes. Gesture is at the center of this discussion. Now the debate is moving into learning, with new research on how students learn to solve math problems in the classroom.
To understand the research, consider a math problem like 3+2 +8 =___+8. A student might make a “v” shape under the 2 and 3 with their pointer finger and middle finger, as they try to understand the concept of “grouping” – adding adjacent numbers together, a technique that can be used to solve the problem. Previous research has shown that students who are asked to gesture while talking about math problems are better at learning how to do them. This is true whether the students are told what gestures to make, or whether the gestures are spontaneous.
Now researchers are asking how. The new study -- by Dr. Susan Goldin-Meadow and Zachary Mitchell of the University of Chicago, and Dr. Susan Wagner-Cook of the University of Iowa – focused on third and fourth graders solving a problem that required grouping. Students who are coached to make the “v” gesture when solving a math problem like 3+2+8 = ___+8 learn how to solve the problem better. But students also do a better job even if they were coached to make the “v” shape under the wrong pair of numbers. The very act of making the “v” shape introduces the concept of “grouping” to the student, through the body itself.
But what, exactly, was the process that made this possible? During the study, all of the students memorized the sentence “I want to make one side equal to the other side.” They were then asked to say the sentence out loud when they were give a problem to solve. The authors suggest that students who also gestured attempted to make sense of both the speech and gesture in a way that brought the two meanings together. This process, they suggest, could crystallize the new concept of “grouping” in the student’s mind.
The same process could occur in any situation where the person who is speaking and gesturing is also trying to understand – be it remembering details of a past event, or figuring out how to put together an Ikea shelf.
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23 Comments
Add CommentWow, who would have thunk it!
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I'm convinced this theory is correct but it's not just about learning new concepts. When I ask those who gesture a lot to try talking without moving their hands, they often have difficulty putting a sentence together. We all recognize the pantomime of writing math problems in the air. When Victor Borge did his classic comedy bit "phonetic punctuation," he "wrote" the punctuation in the air as well as make the sound - which made it so much more communicative for us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you don't know this classic from Victor Borge, please put a giggle in your day.
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/AabdbNPCsF4/
or
http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=bf47859b5fe0349f9b27
If this were true, wouldn't Italians be the smartest people in the world?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's see. Galileo, DaVinci, Julius Cesar... maybe it's true.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJohn Paul II was smart enough to move to Rome.
Very good point gewisn but of course you're speaking in ancient times. We as humans like to consider our nationality as the smartest people in the world. I don't care about how people act its how people think. I mean sure there are alot of smart people out there but when it comes to the development of technology the United States has been the world leader since the Industrial Revolution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery good point gewisn but of course you're speaking in ancient times. We as humans like to consider our nationality as the smartest people in the world. I don't care about how people act its how people think. I mean sure there are alot of smart people out there but when it comes to the development of technology the United States has been the world leader since the Industrial Revolution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo people who communicate in sign language learn differently, faster?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes ! We are. Thank you for noting that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Total Body Movement Approach to learning has been around for decades. It's great to see that neuroscience research is starting to prove the relation between gestures and comprehension.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCestmoi
My children (aged 3 and 5) are learning Makaton sign language at school. The main aim is to aid those who have trouble expressing themselves verbally. However, this study indicates that signing at the same time as speaking will help their overall learning/understanding. That's great news!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy husband teaches workers in a millwright apprenticeship program. He has found they learn much faster and retain the information much better if he uses a combination of hands-on experience, writing the information down, and listening to him explain the concepts. The better he can integrate the experience, the better they learn. Why would kids be any different.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Buddha, 2.500 years ago, used hand gestures( MUDRAS ) to convey his teachings, and he is consired a great savant, with a beautiful mind, by Einstein and other scientists all over the world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a native speaker of Sign language I am glad that the studies are finally catching up to the reality of my life experience. Growing up with a Deaf brother I always excelled at creative thinking and had an extensive vocabulary. I've always thought that having a physical language bolstered the development of my spoken language, but I am pleased to see that research is now showing it can help with all intellectual developments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDance Movement Psychotherapists have been doing research on the connection between the body and how it moves and thinking/feeling processes for decades. There has been much research on movement patterns and developmental patterns - google Kestenberg Movement Profile and/or the American Dance Therapy Association.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHand gestures are in many cultures an essential aspect of learning. they are usually used as keys for rememberance, for separating groups or meaning or to lead one to closer or deeper understanding. Many cultures are dismissed by modern science as backwards or surpassed by modern science, but it is nice to know that even modern culture is not so backward itself that they come to discover the same things the rest of the world knows already for thousands of years. Scientists could safe themselves more often lots of time by simply observing human history and nature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo what does that say about people who learn sign language for the deaf?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo what does that say about people who learn sign language for the deaf?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thought the same thing about learning sign language.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting. I have had two experiences which might relate:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. At a party we were presented with a parlor game; guess the length of string in a ball of twine wrapped around a stick.
I felt a ripple of muscle tensions across my back and came up with the winning answer, close to within 30 cm. At no time was there any verbal or numerical thought in my conscious mind.
2. In the course of developing a new fixative for electron microscopy I had intended to titrate warm, melted trichloroacetic acid into the solution to give 1%.. I over titrated and calculation gave 1.6%. The question was did I or did I not get into a concentration which would destroy the tissue or not. Again, I felt shifting muscle tensions across my back and down my arms and saw groups of white and back cubes on a white background which settled into a balanced configuration and the answer was O.K. and it was. The fixative worked very well. Again, there was neither conscious verbal nor numerical thought here, merely shifting muscle tensions and visual images in space.
As an instructor with the American Red Cross, it has been perceived that the students learn these rescue skills better with practice...that includes repetitive body motion. As I have seen, those who memorize a skill with their bodies as well as their minds are more likely to respond to an emergency situation, without hesitation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs there any good research into the effect of movements which cross the body median and learning? I've heard about this, and wondered if it has validity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee also Howard Gardner's work on Multiple Intelligences: Kinesthetic Intelligence is related to this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI should be noted that your use of "Cartesian Dualism" is inaccurate. Cartesian Dualism is a complex metaphysical system developed in the 17th century by Rene Descartes. In his system mind is immaterial and body material, as stated, but his system is certainly not confined to the realm of cog psyc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo say that the field of cognitive psychology has largely held this view historically is misleading and inaccurate. No sane cognitive scientist has held a dualist view for some time now, parallel-distributed processing models being the dominant paradigm for about twenty years.