Four Functions of Gesture in Promoting Thought Processes

Omid Khatin-Zadeh, Zahra Eskandari, Babak Yazdani-Fazlabadi, Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This article discusses four functions of gesture that could promote thought processes: gesture as a tool to ground knowledge through the visual system; gesture as a tool to enhance short-term and long-term memories; gesture as a tool to ground knowledge through the motor system; and gesture as a tool to suppress irrelevant information. Gestures contribute to the grounding of concepts through metaphors that describe abstract concepts in terms of visually perceivable concepts. In this way, at least some aspects of a concept could be grounded through the visual system. Gestures promote short-term and long-term memories in two ways: by filtering out irrelevant elements of a representation and thus reducing the load on memory; by storing and representing information in the form of organized, appropriate, and easily recallable units. Gestures can contribute to the process of grounding through motor system by activating motor areas and by offering a visually perceivable representation of actions simulated in the mind of the individual. Gestures can promote a suppressive mechanism through which extraneous stimuli and contextually unnecessary elements of a representation are omitted. Through this mechanism, both spatio-motoric and non-spatio-motoric elements are suppressed. Thus, more cognitive resources can be assigned to the relevant parts of the task at hand.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)411-418
Number of pages8
JournalPsychological Studies
Volume67
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2022
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Embodiment
  • Gesture
  • Motor system
  • Visual system

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