Gesturing Saves Cognitive Resources When Talking About Nonpresent Objects
Open accessAbstract
In numerous experimental contexts, gesturing has been shown to lighten a speaker’s cognitive load. However, in all of these experimental paradigms, the gestures have been directed to items in the “here‐and‐now.” This study attempts to generalize gesture’s ability to lighten cognitive load. We demonstrate here that gesturing continues to confer cognitive benefits when speakers talk about objects that are not present, and therefore cannot be directly indexed by gesture. These findings suggest that gesturing confers its benefits by more than simply tying abstract speech to the objects directly visible in the environment. Moreover, we show that the cognitive benefit conferred by gesturing is greater when novice learners produce gestures that add to the information expressed in speech than when they produce gestures that convey the same information as speech, suggesting that it is gesture’s meaningfulness that gives it the ability to affect working memory load.
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Making gestures can be used for cognitive offloading of information during problem-solving, leading to a reduction in working memory load.
“It has been shown that making gestures can be used for cognitive offloading of information during problem-solving, leading to a reduction in working memory load (Wagner-Cook et al. 2012; Goldin-Meadow et al. 2001; Ping and Goldin-Meadow 2010; Risko and Gilbert 2016).”
From Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design: 20 Years Later (2019) · cites this paper as Ping and Goldin-Meadow 2010
The cognitive load benefits of gesturing were even higher when the gestures added information to the information conveyed by speech than when the gestures conveyed the same information as speech, while both resulted in a lower cognitive load than not gesturing.
“They also found that the cognitive load benefits of gesturing were even higher when the gestures added information to the information conveyed by speech than when the gestures conveyed the same information as speech, while both resulted in a lower cognitive load than not gesturing.”
From An Evolutionary Upgrade of Cognitive Load Theory: Using the Human Motor System and Collaboration to Support the Learning of Complex Cognitive Tasks (2012) · cites this paper as Ping and Goldin-Meadow 2010
Gesturing lowered cognitive load, regardless of whether objects were present or absent.
“The results revealed that gesturing lowered cognitive load, regardless of whether objects were present or absent.”
From An Evolutionary Upgrade of Cognitive Load Theory: Using the Human Motor System and Collaboration to Support the Learning of Complex Cognitive Tasks (2012) · cites this paper as Ping and Goldin-Meadow 2010
Studies in the domains of mathematics and Piagetian conservation tasks have shown that the involvement of the more basic motor system in the form of gesturing reduces the working memory load during instruction.
“Studies in the domains of mathematics (Goldin-Meadow et al. 2001) and Piagetian conservation tasks (Ping and Goldin-Meadow 2010) have shown that the involvement of the more basic motor system in the form of gesturing reduces the working memory load during instruction.”
From An Evolutionary Upgrade of Cognitive Load Theory: Using the Human Motor System and Collaboration to Support the Learning of Complex Cognitive Tasks (2012) · cites this paper as Ping and Goldin-Meadow 2010
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- Authors
- Ping, R., & Goldin‐Meadow, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Chicago (US)
- Corresponding author
- Ping, Raedy
- ORCID
- Ping, Raedy
- Venue
- Cognitive Science
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2010-05
- Volume
- 34
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 602-619
- ISSN
- 0364-0213 (ISSN-L)
- 1551-6709
- PMC
- PMC3733275
- OpenAlex
- W2058646341
- Cited by
- 230
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 19 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 67.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Cognitive Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD047450)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Visual and Cognitive Learning Processes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Hearing Impairment and Communication
- Keywords
- gesturing, cognitive load, working memory, gesture-speech interaction, novice learners, speech production
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