The Role of Gesture in Learning

描述（由申请人提供）：当孩子说话时，他们会做手势，这些手势是孩子准备学习的一个指标。在当前的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作用，因此，有助于学习过程本身。这项研究的目的是探索这种影响背后的机制——具体来说，手势对学习的影响是否至少部分源于其在行动中的基础，如果是这样，教育者是否可以利用手势与行动的密切关系来促进学习。这项研究有四个目的。(1)为了探讨手势和动作是否同样能促进学习，研究1-4在训练过程中操纵儿童是经历动作（如旋转物体）还是动作（如手势旋转），并观察这种操作对学习的影响。(2)为了探究手势与动作的接近程度是否会影响其促进学习的程度，研究5-8操纵儿童在训练过程中体验具体手势（例如，手的形状像在移动物体一样旋转）和抽象手势（例如，手的形状像在指向物体旋转），并观察这种操作对学习的影响。(3)为了探究具体手势是否为抽象思维的敲门砖，研究9-12对儿童体验具体和抽象手势的顺序进行了操纵，并观察了这种操纵对学习的影响。(4)为了探究手势对学习的阻碍和帮助，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，观察不相容手势对学习的影响。很可能，手势与动作的相似程度对学习有或大或小的影响，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——一种是涉及对具体物体的心理操作（对物体部分的心理旋转），另一种是涉及对符号对象（数学等价）的心理操作。此外，由于感知动作和执行动作之间的紧密联系，无论孩子做出手势或动作，还是观看实验者做出手势或动作，每个系列的研究都是不同的。有语言学习障碍的儿童经常使用手势来弥补他们的残疾。理解手势促进学习的机制可能在课堂和一对一的辅导情况下都是有益的，特别是在直接对物体采取行动不实际的情况下。与公共卫生有关：儿童说话时做出的手势不仅反映了他们所知道的东西，而且还能改变儿童所知道的东西，从而在学习过程中发挥作用。这项提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，如果是这样，教育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，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情况下，儿童可能不太实际地采取行动。

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.