The Role of Gesture in Learning

手势在学习中的作用

• 批准号: 8298234
• 负责人: SUSAN J GOLDIN-MEADOW
• 金额: $ 33.17万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-07-01 至 2014-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8298234
• 关键词: Acting Out; Affect; Attention; Calculi; Child; Education; Gestures; Grant; Hand; Health; Impairment; Language; Language Development; Learning; Link; Mathematics; Movement; Outcome; Play; Process; Property; Psyche structure; Readiness; Reading; Research; Role; Rotation; Series; Shapes; Simulate; Speech; Staging; Thinking; Training; Work; abstracting; disability; experience; indexing; insight; stem; success

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): When children talk, they gesture and these gestures serve as an index of the child's readiness-to-learn. Work during the current grant period has shown that gesture does more than reflect thought--it plays a role in changing thought and, as a result, contributes to the learning process itself. The purpose of the proposed research is to explore the mechanism underlying this effect--specifically, whether gesture's impact on learning stems, at least in part, from its grounding in action and, if so, whether educators can capitalize on gesture's closeness to action to promote learning. The research has four aims. (1) To explore whether gesture and action work equally well to promote learning, Studies 1-4 manipulate whether children experience action (e.g., rotating an object) or gesture for that action (e.g., gesturing rotate) during training, and observe the effect of that manipulation on learning. (2) To explore whether gesture's closeness to action affects how well it promotes learning, Studies 5-8 manipulate whether children experience concrete gesture (e.g., rotate with the hand shaped as though it were actually moving the object) vs. abstract gesture (e.g., rotate with a pointing handshape) during training, and observe the effect of that manipulation on learning. (3) To explore whether concrete gesture serves as a stepping-stone to abstract thinking, Studies 9-12 manipulate the order in which children experience concrete and abstract gestures, and observe the effect of the manipulation on learning. (4) To explore whether gesture can hinder as well as help learning, Studies 13-16 provide children with gestures containing action features that are incompatible with the task, and observe the effect of incompatible gestures on learning. It is likely that the degree to which gesture resembles action has a larger or smaller effect on learning depending on the concreteness of the task to be learned. As a result, each series of studies uses two types of tasks--a task involving mental manipulation of concrete objects (mental rotation of parts of an object) and a task involving mental manipulation of symbolic objects (mathematical equivalence). In addition, because of the tight link between perceiving an action and performing the action, each series of studies varies whether the child produces gesture or action, or watches an experimenter produce gesture or action. Gesture is often used by children with impairments in language learning to compensate for their disabilities. Understanding the mechanism by which gesture promotes learning may be beneficial in both classroom and one-on-one tutorial situations, particularly in situations where acting directly on objects is not practical. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The gestures that children produce when they talk not only reflect what they know, they can also change what children know and, in this way, play a role in the learning process. The proposed research explores whether gesture's impact on learning stems from its grounding in action and, if so, whether educators can capitalize on gesture's closeness to action to promote learning. Since children who have impairments in language often use gesture to compensate for their disabilities, emphasizing gesture may be particularly beneficial for children with special needs in both classrooms and one-on-one tutorial or assessment situations where it may not be practical for children to act.

描述（由申请人提供）：当孩子们说话时，他们会做出手势，这些手势可以作为孩子学习准备程度的指标。当前资助期间的工作表明，手势不仅仅反映思想——它在改变思想方面发挥着作用，因此有助于学习过程本身。本研究的目的是探索这种效应背后的机制——具体来说，手势对学习的影响是否至少部分源于其以行动为基础，如果是，教育工作者是否可以利用手势与行动的密切关系来促进学习。该研究有四个目标。 (1) 为了探索手势和动作是否同样有效地促进学习，研究 1-4 操纵儿童在训练期间是否经历动作（例如，旋转物体）或该动作的手势（例如，手势旋转），并观察该操纵对学习的影响。 (2) 为了探讨手势与动作的接近程度是否会影响其促进学习的效果，研究 5-8 操纵儿童在训练期间体验具体手势（例如，以手形旋转，就好像它实际上在移动物体一样）与抽象手势（例如，以指向的手形旋转），并观察该操作对学习的影响。 （3）为了探讨具体手势是否可以作为抽象思维的垫脚石，研究9-12操纵儿童体验具体和抽象手势的顺序，并观察这种操纵对学习的效果。 （4）为了探讨手势是否会阻碍和帮助学习，研究13-16为儿童提供了包含与任务不相容的动作特征的手势，并观察不相容的手势对学习的影响。手势与动作的相似程度可能对学习产生或大或小的影响，具体取决于要学习的任务的具体程度。因此，每个系列的研究都使用两种类型的任务——一种涉及对具体对象的心理操纵（对象部分的心理旋转）的任务和一种涉及对符号对象的心理操纵（数学等价）的任务。此外，由于感知动作和执行动作之间的紧密联系，无论是孩子做出手势或动作，还是观看实验者做出手势或动作，每一系列研究都会有所不同。有语言学习障碍的儿童经常使用手势来弥补他们的缺陷。了解手势促进学习的机制在课堂和一对一辅导情况下可能都是有益的，特别是在直接作用于物体不切实际的情况下。公共卫生相关性：儿童说话时的手势不仅反映了他们所知道的内容，还可以改变儿童所知道的内容，从而在学习过程中发挥作用。拟议的研究探讨了手势对学习的影响是否源于其以行动为基础，如果是，教育工作者是否可以利用手势与行动的密切关系来促进学习。由于有语言障碍的儿童经常使用手势来弥补他们的残疾，因此强调手势可能对有特殊需要的儿童特别有益，无论是在课堂上还是在一对一的辅导或评估环境中，在这些情况下，儿童可能无法采取行动。