Gesture as a mechanism of change in the interface between spatial language and cognitive development

IF 1.9 3区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

Cognitive Development Pub Date : 2026-04-01 Epub Date: 2026-03-27 DOI:10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101694

Dilay Z. Karadöller , Ercenur Ünal , Beyza Sümer , Demet Özer , Aslı Özyürek

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Children often use gestures to express concepts before expressing them in speech, particularly in domains rich in visual-spatial information. For example, spatial relations such as left-right are cognitively and linguistically challenging for children. Consequently, 8-year-olds struggle to convey these complex relations verbally, but they frequently rely on gestures to describe these spatial concepts informatively. This study builds on this prior work on the descriptions of left-right relations to investigate further (1) the differing functions of gestures (complementary or redundant) in relation to speech in both children and adults; (2) the change in semantic information conveyed in both of these types of gestures in childhood to adulthood, aiming to shed light on the interaction between spatial language and spatial cognitive development. Eight-year-old and adult monolingual Turkish speakers described pictures of objects in left-right spatial relations shown among a quartet of other types of spatial relations between these objects. Results demonstrated that when describing left-right relations between objects, children, compared to adults, provided more under-informative descriptions (i.e., using “side” instead of “left-right”) in speech but used complementary gestures to convey missing information multimodally. Adults already used informative spatial terms in speech and used gestures mostly redundantly. Moreover, children showed a preference for iconic gestures depicting the relative locations of objects over directional pointing gestures indicating single locations, especially when gestures complemented speech. In contrast, adults showed no reliable preference for either gesture type. These results indicate the significance of gestures as mechanisms of change, alongside speech, in spatial language and cognition, particularly in the context of describing cognitively complex left-right spatial relations between objects.

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手势是空间语言与认知发展界面的一种变化机制

儿童在用语言表达概念之前，经常使用手势来表达概念，特别是在富含视觉空间信息的领域。例如，像左右这样的空间关系对儿童来说是认知和语言上的挑战。因此，8岁的孩子很难用语言表达这些复杂的关系，但他们经常依靠手势来描述这些空间概念。本研究建立在先前对左右关系描述的基础上，进一步研究(1)儿童和成人在言语方面手势（补充或冗余）的不同功能；(2)空间语言与空间认知发展之间的相互作用，旨在揭示空间语言与空间认知发展之间的相互作用。八岁和成年的单语土耳其人描述了物体在左右空间关系中的图片，这些物体之间有四种其他类型的空间关系。结果表明，在描述物体之间的左右关系时，与成人相比，儿童在言语中提供了更多信息不足的描述（即使用“侧”而不是“左右”），但使用补充手势多模态地传达缺失的信息。成年人已经在讲话中使用信息丰富的空间术语，并且大多使用多余的手势。此外，儿童表现出对描绘物体相对位置的标志性手势的偏好，而不是指向单一位置的定向手势，尤其是当手势补充语言时。相比之下，成年人对两种手势类型都没有表现出可靠的偏好。这些结果表明，在空间语言和认知中，尤其是在描述物体之间复杂的左右空间关系时，手势作为一种变化机制，与言语一样具有重要意义。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Cognitive Development Multiple-

CiteScore

3.20

自引率

5.60%

发文量

114

期刊介绍： Cognitive Development contains the very best empirical and theoretical work on the development of perception, memory, language, concepts, thinking, problem solving, metacognition, and social cognition. Criteria for acceptance of articles will be: significance of the work to issues of current interest, substance of the argument, and clarity of expression. For purposes of publication in Cognitive Development, moral and social development will be considered part of cognitive development when they are related to the development of knowledge or thought processes.