The Role of Gesture in Supporting Mental Representations: The Case of Mental Abacus Arithmetic

Autor/inn/en	Brooks, Neon B.; Barner, David; Frank, Michael; Goldin-Meadow, Susan
Titel	The Role of Gesture in Supporting Mental Representations: The Case of Mental Abacus Arithmetic
Quelle	In: Cognitive Science, 42 (2018) 2, S.554-575 (22 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0364-0213
DOI	10.1111/cogs.12527
Schlagwörter	Nonverbal Communication; Problem Solving; Computation; Schemata (Cognition); Arithmetic; Difficulty Level; Task Analysis + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Non-verbal communication; Nonverbale Kommunikation; Problemlösen; Cognition; Schema; Kognition; Addition; Arithmetik; Arithmetikunterricht; Rechnen; Schwierigkeitsgrad; Aufgabenanalyse
Abstract	People frequently gesture when problem-solving, particularly on tasks that require spatial transformation. Gesture often facilitates task performance by interacting with internal mental representations, but how this process works is not well understood. We investigated this question by exploring the case of mental abacus (MA), a technique in which users not only imagine moving beads on an abacus to compute sums, but also produce movements in gestures that accompany the calculations. Because the content of MA is transparent and readily manipulated, the task offers a unique window onto how gestures interface with mental representations. We find that the size and number of MA gestures reflect the length and difficulty of math problems. Also, by selectively interfering with aspects of gesture, we find that participants perform significantly worse on MA under motor interference, but that perceptual feedback is not critical for success on the task. We conclude that premotor processes involved in the planning of gestures are critical to mental representation in MA. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01