Variations in Speech and Gesture on a Pattern Task in Children and Adults

• In Event: Talking About Numbers

Abstract

Increasing research focuses on patterning, or the ability to detect systematic regularities in a sequence, as early pattern knowledge relates to domain-general cognitive skills and formal math achievement (Burgoyne et al., 2017). However, little work examines how individuals explain their responses on pattern tasks, and whether components of verbal explanations and gestures inform pattern understanding and learning. In in other areas of cognitive development, children’s speech and gestures, and alignment or misalignments between the two, provide rich insights into cognition (Church, 1999). Here, we examined the quality of children and adults’ speech and gesture on a target task with patterns that have a core unit of repeat (e.g., a unit AB that repeats to form the pattern ABABAB).

Ninety children (M = 5.4 years) and 95 adults (M = 19.5 years) solved a series of pattern abstraction tasks where they recreated the structure of a model pattern using novel materials and then explained how their pattern was similar to the model. Using video-recorded data, we examined the quality of speech and gesture strategies and coded two sophisticated strategies: (1) mapping across patterns, or making explicit, accurate connections between features of target and model patterns (e.g., my blue stars are like your big squares, pointing from one to the other), and (2) identifying the unit of repeat (UoR; e.g., both patterns go ABB, pointing to the unit). We also coded the frequency of speech-gesture matches and mismatches (information conveyed in speech but not gesture, or vice versa) for each strategy.

Developmental differences were observed in speech and gesture for both strategies. Children infrequently mapped across patterns (10% of trials; SD = 22) in speech, but adults did so on 61% of trials (SD = 38%). Mapping via gesture was similarly low in children (M = 12%; SD = 22%) and somewhat less frequent in adults (M = 43%; SD = 35%). Explicit identification of UoR behaviors were infrequent in children (M = 10%; SD = 20%) in both modalities but more frequent and variable in adults (M,speech = 69%; SD = 1.11%; M,gesture = 51%; SD = 32%). For both strategies, children’s speech-gesture matches only occurred on 6% of trials (SD = 16%). Child mismatches were also infrequent, occurring on 5% (SD = 14%) and 4% (SD = 13%) of trials in mapping across patterns and explicit identification of UoR strategies, respectively. Speech-gesture matches were more common in adults, occurring on 29% (SD = 31%) and 44% (SD = 31%) of all trials for mapping and UoR strategies. Conversely, mismatches for mapping and UoR behaviors occurred 47% (SD = 30%) and 22% (SD = 16%) of the time, respectively.

Overall, results demonstrate developmental trends in in-the-moment problem-solving behaviors that may reflect pattern understanding. These findings offer insight into important behavioral markers of pattern understanding and suggest that variability in these behaviors is even evident in adulthood. Future work should examine how verbal explanations and gestures in response to pattern task prompts may reflect current knowledge levels or influence later learning outcomes.

Authors

• Giulia Alexandra Borriello, Indiana University - Bloomington
  Presenting Author

• Emily Fyfe, Indiana University - Bloomington