How does experience shape preschool children’s gestural representations of novel objects?

• In Event: Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Topic - Language, Communication

Abstract

When asked to produce gestures about instrumental actions, children typically produce one of two types of gestures: invisible object (IO) or body part as object (BPO). IO gestures show how an invisible instrument is handled (e.g, holding an invisible toothbrush), and BPO gestures employ a body part as a substitute for the instrument (e.g., pointer finger as toothbrush). Age seems to play a role in children’s gesture choices: Older children produce more IO gestures than younger children (Masson-Carro et al. 2015, Weidinger et al. 2017), a shift that happens sometime between the ages of 3 and 6 (Boyatzis & Watson, 1993; Overton & Jackson, 1973). What drives this developmental shift is unclear. We investigated whether the amount of experience with an object affects children’s gestures about that object. We speculated that more first-hand experience with an object would elicit more IO gestures. Thus we hypothesized that we would elicit more IO gestures when children had more direct experience with a novel object and more BPO gestures when they had less direct experience with a novel object. Moreover, we hypothesized that this effect would be more pronounced among younger children. We elicited 15 gestures from 81 preschoolers, between 3 to 5 years of age. In a within-subjects design, we provided children with three different types of experience with novel objects labeled with novel names: (1) no modeling and no experience, where the child just saw the object on a tray, (2) modeling, where the child watched the experimenter use the object, and (3) modeling with experience, where the child watched the experimenter use the object then had the chance to use the object themselves. After exposure to each object, we asked children to show with their hands the novel action (e.g., “show with your hands daxing”). All gestures were coded offline by two coders blind to condition (88.7% agreement, Cohen’s Kappa=.87, p<0.001). Mixed effects linear regression analysis identified significant main effects of age and condition on the number of IO gestures produced; older children produced more (p=.002) and children produced significantly fewer IO gestures in the no modeling, no experience condition compared to the other two conditions (p<.001; see Figure 1). The fewer IOs observed in the no modeling, no experience condition was not due to an increase in the production of BPO gestures, but due to an increase in “ambiguous” gestures (see Figure 2). Together the data show that either watching someone engage in an action or doing the action yourself supports similar gestural representations; children do not need to complete an action themselves to build a gestural representation. However, in the absence of a model or first-hand experience, children struggle to produce a gestural representation, producing fewer gestures overall, and more ambiguous gestures. Action information, direct or indirect, about an object may be necessary elements for children to build and execute a rich gestural representation of objects.

Authors

• Jennie E. Pyers, Wellesley College
  Presenting Author

• Audrey Lin, Wellesley College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kathryn Marton, Wellesley College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alex Reichle, Wellesley College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tracy Gleason, Wellesley College
  Non-Presenting Author