Abstract
Growing evidence has suggested a facilitatory role of gesture on speech production (Frick-Horbury & Guttentag, 1998; Hostetter, Alibali, & Kita, 2007; Rose & Douglas, 2001). The general theme proposed by these investigations was that gestures assist word retrieval by engaging mental imagery or conceptual processes (de Ruiter, 1998; Hadar & Butterworth, 1997; Wesp, Hesse, Keutmann, & Wheaton, 2001; Kita, 2000). Accordingly, the focus of previous investigation was typically on gestures that appeared to be meaningfully connected to speech (e.g., known as “representational”, “lexical”, or “iconic” gestures). It seems, however, that people also use gestures semantically unrelated to their speech, and the nature of these gestures is purely motoric (Kim, Stierwalt, LaPointe, Alani, & Lewis, 2007). Despite the frequent occurrence of non-semantic gestures, there are few studies that have examined a potential role of non-semantic gestures on speech production (Kim et al., 2007; Ravizza, 2003). The current study investigated the effect of non-semantic gesture using constant circular hand movements on word retrieval. Seventy-eight undergraduates (42 males, 36 females) completed the picture naming tests across two conditions (i.e., imposed gesture vs. restricted gesture). All of the participants were right-handed but their degree of handedness varied. The primary purpose of this study was to see if there is a difference in response time and inaccuracy across the conditions. In addition, the present study intended to examine the potential influence of gender and degree of laterality on picture naming performance. The results of this study suggested that for individuals without neurological compromise, increased motoric activation by constant circular hand movements did not facilitate lexical retrieval. No influence of gender and degree of laterality was found in this experiment. The researchers speculated that for non-semantic movement to have an effect on word retrieval, it should be used “spontaneously”, not imposed.
|
