Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: The current experiment examined the impact of co-verbal gestures on speech fluency for a description task. Previous research has shown that the speech and co-verbal gesture systems interact (Chieffi, Secchi, & Gentilucci, 2009). In fact, numerous studies have found that restricting gestures during speech increases instances of speech disfluencies (e.g., ums, pauses; Morsella & Krauss, 2004). Additionally, many individual differences like working memory ability or bilingualism impact rate of co-verbal gesturing (Gillespie, James, Federmeier, & Watson, 2014; Nicoladis, Pika, & Marentette, 2009). The current study compared speech fluency for participants in each of three gesture conditions for a task involving descriptions of unique objects. Speech was predicted to be less fluent when participants were in the restricted gesture condition compared to a condition requiring a specified constant movement, followed by the most fluent speech found in the free gesture condition. Although there were no effects of gesture condition, additional analyses examined how participant variables affected rate of gesturing and its relationship to speech fluency. Overall, it appears certain individual characteristics and abilities impact speech fluency as well as contribute to the relationship between gestures and speech fluency.
Author: Sara Anne Goring
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2512080611