Coreference Processing in Gesture and Speech

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A necessary operation for language comprehension and production is coreference, which involves keeping track of concepts in memory, updating them, and forming correct links in the mind between different coreferring forms, often over long distances. The process of coreference in text comprehension has been well studied, while the contribution of discourse and prosodic cues relevant for the speech and gesture modalities has received considerably less attention. This proposal seeks funding to investigate the process of coreference in speech-gesture comprehension and production in order to model the organization and mechanisms of the adult, end-state, language system more completely. Four hypotheses will be tested. (1) Prosodic stress accesses and makes use of the same underlying memory mechanism(s) and organizing principles as found for text comprehension. (2) Gesture can be used to mark antecedents and this coreferent gesture is co-expressive with speech. (3) Coreferring gestures also make use of the same underlying memory mechanism(s) and organizing principles as prosodic stress and text comprehension. (4) Gesture codes antecedent representations in a motor-kinetic format.