The Role of Gesture in Learning

描述(申请人提供)：当孩子说话时，他们会做手势，这些手势可以作为孩子学习准备程度的指标。目前赠款期间的研究表明，手势不仅仅反映了思想--它在改变思想方面发挥了作用，因此对学习过程本身也有贡献。这项拟议的研究的目的是探索这种效果背后的机制--具体地说，手势对学习的影响是否至少部分源于它的行动基础，如果是的话，教育者是否可以利用手势与行动的接近来促进学习。这项研究有四个目标。(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)为了探索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研究了儿童在训练期间是否经历了具体手势(例如，旋转手形就像它实际上在移动物体一样)与抽象手势(例如，用指向手形旋转)，并观察了这种操作对学习的影响。(3)为了探索具体手势是否作为抽象思维的垫脚石，研究9-12对儿童体验具体手势和抽象手势的顺序进行了操纵，并观察了操纵对学习的影响。(4)为了探讨手势是否可以阻碍和帮助学习，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，并观察了不相容手势对学习的影响。手势与动作的相似程度可能会对学习产生更大或更小的影响，这取决于要学习的任务的具体程度。因此，每一系列研究都使用两种类型的任务--一种任务涉及对具体对象的心理操作(对象部分的心理旋转)，另一种任务涉及对符号对象的心理操作(数学等价性)。此外，由于感知动作和执行动作之间的紧密联系，每一系列研究都有所不同，无论是儿童做出手势或动作，还是观看实验者产生手势或动作。手势经常被语言学习障碍的儿童用来弥补他们的残疾。理解手势促进学习的机制在课堂和一对一辅导情况下都可能是有益的，特别是在直接作用于物体的情况下。与公共卫生相关：儿童说话时的手势不仅反映了他们所知道的，而且还可以改变儿童所知道的，并通过这种方式在学习过程中发挥作用。这项拟议的研究探讨了手势对学习的影响是否源于它在行动中的基础，如果是的话，教育者是否可以利用手势与行动的接近来促进学习。由于语言有障碍的儿童经常使用手势来弥补他们的残疾，在课堂上和一对一辅导或评估的情况下，强调手势可能对有特殊需要的儿童特别有益，因为在这些情况下，儿童的行动可能不切实际。

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.