Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Date
2021
Abstract
We explore the link between children’s gesture production and analogical reasoning. Specifically, we ask whether children who spontaneously gesture when completing a retelling task are more likely to engage in analogical transfer, compared to those who do not gesture. To test this, 85 5-7-year-olds listened to three superficially distinct stories that shared a common abstract problem and solution. After each of the first two exemplar stories, participants were asked to retell the story events to a naïve listener and their speech and spontaneous gesture(s) were coded. For the third story, participants were asked to generate the analogous solution themselves. Results indicate a significant relationship between children’s analogical transfer and gesture production. This preliminary study suggests that children’s spontaneous gestures may provide a window into their analogical processing. We discuss future directions aimed at further examining the mechanism underlying this relationship.
Recommended Citation
Kim. M., & Walker, C. M. (2021). Preschoolers’ spontaneous gesture production predicts analogical transfer. In Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Virtual Meeting. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0v82d76d
Copyright
The authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.