by Susan Goldin-Meadow at Psyche: You’ve probably noticed yourself moving your hands when you talk, and seen other people doing it too. The more excited you are about what you’re saying, I bet the more likely you are to move your hands – to gesture. Everybody gestures, although some of us do it much more than others; I’ve even met people who believe they can’t talk without moving their hands. Most of us know on some level that our hands and mouths work together to communicate, yet few people give gesturing the attention it deserves.
The first time I realised that I was ignoring gesture was when I watched a certain video for the umpteenth time. It showed children trying to explain that the number of checkers in a row changes when the checkers are spread out (of course it doesn’t – but the children didn’t know that yet). I’d watched that video so many times because for years I’d played it to my developmental psychology class. But then one day it dawned on me that all the children gestured as they gave their explanations. Once I paid attention to their gestures, I discovered something surprising – the children’s hand movements conveyed meaning and, at times, they expressed a correct idea about the checkers with their gestures (pointing back and forth between the corresponding checkers in the two rows) and a different, incorrect idea with their speech.
Looking closely at this video changed my research life. I began seeing gesture everywhere, even where we least expect it. For instance, people who are blind from birth move their hands when they talk – even though they have never seen anyone gesture. I also began thinking hard about what we can learn about our minds from gesture, and I discovered that gesture isn’t just hand-waving. Your waving hands reflect, and change, thinking – yours and other people’s. You have a powerful tool for thinking at your fingertips. Why not put it to good use?
Use gestures to boost your memory
Your gestures can give you a mental boost. If you gesture as you describe a scene, you will be able to remember the scene better than if you don’t gesture. For example, in one study I co-authored, we asked participants to describe and remember a series of odd scenes, such as: a chicken sliding to a policeman; a dove flying into a wheelbarrow; a jogger bending down to touch his toes. Whether participants gestured spontaneously while describing the scenes (using, for example, a beak gesture to represent the chicken) or we instructed them to gesture, we found they subsequently remembered the scenes better than if they had described them without gesturing. In short, gesturing while talking about something seems to lead to more robust memories compared with just talking about it. We don’t yet know why but it could be because you are encapsulating the memory, not only in your words, but also in your hands.
More here.
