How does gesturing help children learn? Gesturing might encourage children to extract meaning implicit in their hand movements. If so, children should be sensitive to the particular movements they produce and learn accordingly. Alternatively, all that may matter is that children move their hands. If so, they should learn regardless of which movements they produce. To investigate these alternatives, we manipulated gesturing during a math lesson. We found that children required to produce correct gestures learned more than children required to produce partially correct gestures, who learned more than children required to produce no gestures. This effect was mediated by whether children took information conveyed solely in their gestures and added it to their speech. The findings suggest that body movements are involved not only in processing old ideas, but also in creating new ones. We may be able to lay foundations for new knowledge simply by telling learners how to move their hands.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 04 September 2016.
All research outputs
#13,408,565
of 22,755,127 outputs
Outputs from Psychological Science
#3,540
of 4,197 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#76,757
of 93,849 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Psychological Science
#45
of 59 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,755,127 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 39th percentile – i.e., 39% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,197 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 80.7. This one is in the 14th percentile – i.e., 14% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 93,849 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 17th percentile – i.e., 17% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 59 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 23rd percentile – i.e., 23% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
