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The role of gesture in language development and evolution.

手势在语言发展和进化中的作用。

基本信息

批准号：
ES/S011587/1
负责人：
Suzanne Aussems
金额：
$ 10.81万
依托单位：
University of Warwick
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Fellowship
财政年份：
2018
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2018 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FS011587%2F1
关键词：
role gesture language development evolution.

项目摘要

People naturally produce gestures when they speak. Little is still known about the role these gestures play in children's language development. My research focused on the role of iconic gestures - gesticulations that accompany speech and illustrate what is being said. For instance, you can wiggle your index and middle fingers to depict "walking" or bring your hand to your mouth as if holding a glass to depict "drinking". Children understand these iconic gestures by age 3 and my PhD research suggested that seeing adults produce these gestures while speaking is formative for children's language learning. Studying the ways we can stimulate vocabulary growth in preschool-aged children is very important, because the vobulary size and skills of children at this age are major predictors of later school success.During the fellowship, I will collect data from one experiment with 3-year-old children that will help us to better understand how seeing iconic gestures facilitates word learning. I will visit local nurseries to play a computer-based word learning game with 96 children. I will publish my research findings from this experiment and from my PhD dissertation in two top-tier scientific journals in developmental psychology and I will present those research findings at one international conference on cognitive development, in Budapest, Hungary.I will also develop a Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellowship proposal that extends my PhD research. I will design a series of lab-based experiments that help us investigate how parents can use nonverbal communication (e.g. facial expressions, body language, and hand gestures) to teach their child new words. I will propose to analyse body position of the parent and child (face-to-face or side-by-side) and eye contact, touch, and gestures. Moreover, I will visit two internationally leading research groups to develop collaborative research on mother-child interactions. I will visit Simone Pika's biocognition lab, which has collected video recordings of naturalistic social interactions between chimpanzee mothers and their young living in the wild. I will also visit with Susan Goldin-Meadow's gesture lab, which has collected video recorings of naturalistic interactions between parents and children in their family homes. I will gain access to selected parts of these unique datasets and further develop my ideas for a funding proposal. In my future research, I would like to compare the use of gesture in mother-child interactions in humans and great apes, which could tell us more about the origins of human communication. I will develop a Marie-Curie Global Fellowship application with the two hosts that proposes a series of comparative studies.I will communicate my research to the general audience in five public engagement activities. First, I will mobilise a team of researchers to speak to parents at the NEC Baby Show in Birmingham. More than 17,000 parents attend this event over the course of three days to prepare for the arrival of their new baby. I will inform parents about the importance of child development studies, which leads parents to value child research, and allows them to share their experiences with researchers. I will create an information leaflet for parents to take home, with general information about my research and what a visit to the University involves. Second, I will visit family events at 19 local libraries to talk to parents about the importance of child development research. Third, I will visit Baby Sensory sessions at the Herbert Art Gallery in Coventry to inform parents there as well, so that I can reach a wider audience. Fourth, I will publish a digital newsletter that provides information about recent findings in developmental studies on language and gesture. Finally, I will regularly update the social media pages of Warwick Research with Kids Group (Facebook and Twitter), so that followers can receive updates about my proposed research activities.

人们说话时很自然地会做出手势。关于这些手势在儿童语言发展中的作用，目前还知之甚少。我的研究重点是标志性手势的作用，这些手势伴随着演讲，并说明正在说什么。例如，你可以摆动你的食指和中指来描绘“走路”，或者把你的手放到嘴边，就像拿着杯子来描绘“喝酒”。孩子们在3岁的时候就能理解这些标志性的手势，我的博士研究表明，看到成年人在说话时做出这些手势，对孩子的语言学习是有帮助的。研究如何刺激学龄前儿童的词汇增长非常重要，因为这个年龄段儿童的词汇大小和技能是未来学习成功的主要预测因素。在团契期间，我将收集一项针对3岁儿童的实验数据，这将有助于我们更好地理解看到标志性手势如何促进单词学习。我将参观当地的托儿所，和96个孩子一起玩电脑单词学习游戏。我将在发展心理学的两个顶级科学期刊上发表我的这项实验和我的博士论文的研究成果，我将在匈牙利布达佩斯的一个关于认知发展的国际会议上展示这些研究成果。我还将制定一项勒弗胡勒姆博士后奖学金计划，以扩展我的博士研究。我将设计一系列基于实验室的实验，帮助我们调查父母如何使用非语言交流(如面部表情、肢体语言和手势)来教他们的孩子新单词。我将建议分析父母和孩子的身体位置(面对面或并排)以及眼神接触、触摸和手势。此外，我还将访问两个国际领先的研究小组，以开展关于母子互动的合作研究。我将参观西蒙·皮卡的生物认知实验室，该实验室收集了黑猩猩母亲和它们生活在野外的幼崽之间自然主义社会互动的视频记录。我还将参观苏珊·戈尔丁-梅朵的手势实验室，该实验室收集了父母和孩子在家里进行自然互动的视频记录。我将访问这些独特的数据集的选定部分，并进一步发展我的资金提案想法。在我未来的研究中，我想比较人类和类人猿在母子互动中手势的使用，这可能会告诉我们更多关于人类交流的起源。我将与两位主持人一起开发玛丽-居里夫人全球奖学金申请，提出一系列比较研究。我将在五个公共参与活动中向普通观众传达我的研究。首先，我将动员一组研究人员在伯明翰举行的NEC婴儿展上向父母发表讲话。在三天的时间里，超过1.7万名父母参加了这一活动，为他们的新生儿的到来做准备。我将告知家长儿童发展研究的重要性，这将导致家长重视儿童研究，并允许他们与研究人员分享他们的经验。我将制作一份信息传单，供家长带回家，其中包括关于我的研究的一般信息，以及访问该大学涉及的内容。其次，我将参观当地19家图书馆的家庭活动，与家长们谈论儿童发展研究的重要性。第三，我将参观考文垂赫伯特艺术画廊的婴儿感官会议，通知那里的父母，这样我就可以接触到更广泛的观众。第四，我将出版一份数字时事通讯，提供有关语言和手势发展研究的最新发现。最后，我会定期更新Warwick Research with Kids Group(Facebook和Twitter)的社交媒体页面，这样追随者就可以收到关于我提议的研究活动的最新信息。