Gestures Augment Learning in Communicators and Recipients

Communicators explained how to assemble an object or how to get from A to B to recipients, using speech and gesture freely, or restricted to gesture alone. Explanations were examined for uses of gesture and speech in conveying semantic content as well as narrative structure. For both tasks, communicators who explained using only gestures performed better than those using gestures and speech. Recipients also learned both tasks better after watching explanations that only used gestures. Specific gestures were related to specific contents of memory, suggesting that gestures change the nature of thought. Gestures seem to be effective for several reasons: they preferentially call attention to certain information, they bear iconic or metaphoric resemblance to the ideas they convey, and they embody and situate knowledge.