Stronger activation of spatial representations of words by presentation of gestures in absence of spatial task
(2018) Embodied & Situated Language Processing Conference 2018 p.16-16- Abstract
- Speech and gestures express meaning together, connecting lexical and visuo-spatial representations in the speaker’s mind. Several studies have demonstrated uptake of spatial information from gestures however usually following explicit instructions to recreate or recall spatial features, deviating from typical listening situations. It remains unclear whether exposure to gestures activates spatial representations of verbal content without an explicitly spatial task. We conducted an online experiment where one group of participants (n=33) watched three videos of native Swedish speakers describing rooms in an audio-visual (AV) condition. Another group (n=32) only heard the ... (More)
- Speech and gestures express meaning together, connecting lexical and visuo-spatial representations in the speaker’s mind. Several studies have demonstrated uptake of spatial information from gestures however usually following explicit instructions to recreate or recall spatial features, deviating from typical listening situations. It remains unclear whether exposure to gestures activates spatial representations of verbal content without an explicitly spatial task. We conducted an online experiment where one group of participants (n=33) watched three videos of native Swedish speakers describing rooms in an audio-visual (AV) condition. Another group (n=32) only heard the same three descriptions without video (audio-only, A). During presentations participants were naïve to the following task, consisting of making either lexical- (is this a word?), semantic- (is this concrete?), or spatial (would this fit inside a room?) decisions on a series of 29 nouns, including seven mentioned in stimuli (with gesture in AV condition). Assuming that stronger activation of spatial representations facilitates the spatial decision task, we predicted that the AV condition would generate faster reaction times (on included nouns) compared to A in the spatial task, but not in the other tasks. Our analysis of recorded reaction times confirmed our predictions, suggesting a stronger activation of spatial representations of words presented with gesture in the absence of an explicit task demanding spatial processing. The results tally with previous findings suggesting that speech-gesture integration is modulated by content and task, thus contributing to our understanding of the role gestures plays in spatial processing in natural verbal communication. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/fc23de44-ba2f-4a53-b024-910342b75814
- author
- Nirme, Jens LU
- organization
- alternative title
- Stronger activation of spatial representations of words by presentation of gestures in absence of spatial task
- publishing date
- 2018-08-10
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- published
- subject
- pages
- 16 - 16
- conference name
- Embodied & Situated Language Processing Conference 2018
- conference location
- Lancaster, United Kingdom
- conference dates
- 2018-08-10 - 2018-08-12
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- fc23de44-ba2f-4a53-b024-910342b75814
- alternative location
- http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/eslp2018/files/2018/08/ESLP-2018-Book-of-Abstracts.pdf#page=19
- date added to LUP
- 2019-06-27 12:14:37
- date last changed
- 2025-04-04 15:15:36
@misc{fc23de44-ba2f-4a53-b024-910342b75814,
abstract = {{Speech and gestures express meaning together, connecting lexical and visuo-spatial representations in the speaker’s mind. Several studies have demonstrated uptake of spatial information from gestures however usually following explicit instructions to recreate or recall spatial features, deviating from typical listening situations. It remains unclear whether exposure to gestures activates spatial representations of verbal content without an explicitly spatial task. We conducted an online experiment where one group of participants (n=33) watched three videos of native Swedish speakers describing rooms in an audio-visual (AV) condition. Another group (n=32) only heard the same three descriptions without video (audio-only, A). During presentations participants were naïve to the following task, consisting of making either lexical- (is this a word?), semantic- (is this concrete?), or spatial (would this fit inside a room?) decisions on a series of 29 nouns, including seven mentioned in stimuli (with gesture in AV condition). Assuming that stronger activation of spatial representations facilitates the spatial decision task, we predicted that the AV condition would generate faster reaction times (on included nouns) compared to A in the spatial task, but not in the other tasks. Our analysis of recorded reaction times confirmed our predictions, suggesting a stronger activation of spatial representations of words presented with gesture in the absence of an explicit task demanding spatial processing. The results tally with previous findings suggesting that speech-gesture integration is modulated by content and task, thus contributing to our understanding of the role gestures plays in spatial processing in natural verbal communication.}},
author = {{Nirme, Jens}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{08}},
pages = {{16--16}},
title = {{Stronger activation of spatial representations of words by presentation of gestures in absence of spatial task}},
url = {{http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/eslp2018/files/2018/08/ESLP-2018-Book-of-Abstracts.pdf#page=19}},
year = {{2018}},
}