Abstract
In everyday communication, people not only use speech but also hand gestures to convey information. One intriguing question in gesture research has been why gestures take the specific form they do. Previous research has identified the speaker-gesturer’s communicative intent as one factor shaping the form of iconic gestures. Here we investigate whether communicative intent also shapes the form of pointing gestures. In an experimental setting, twenty-four participants produced pointing gestures identifying a referent for an addressee. The communicative intent of the speaker-gesturer was manipulated by varying the informativeness of the pointing gesture. A second independent variable was the presence or absence of concurrent speech. As a function of their communicative intent and irrespective of the presence of speech, participants varied the durations of the stroke and the post-stroke hold-phase of their gesture. These findings add to our understanding of how the communicative context influences the form that a gesture takes.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2013) |
Editors | M. Knauff, M. Pauen, N. Sebanz, I. Wachsmuth |
Place of Publication | Austin, TX |
Publisher | Cognitive Science Society |
Pages | 1127-1132 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Publication status | Published - 2013 |
Event | 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society - Berlin, Germany Duration: 31 Jul 2013 → 3 Aug 2013 |
Conference
Conference | 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society |
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Country/Territory | Germany |
City | Berlin |
Period | 31/07/13 → 3/08/13 |
Bibliographical note
We thank Albert Russel for technical assistance. JH was supported through Marie Curie Fellowship #255569 as well as through ERC Advanced Grant #269484 INTERACT.Keywords
- pointing gesture
- communicative intent
- gesture production
- action planning
- deixis