Co-speech gesture as input in verb learning

Abstract

People gesture a great deal when speaking, and research has shown that listeners can interpret the information contained in gesture. The current research examines whether learners can also use co-speech gesture to inform language learning. Specifically, we examine whether listeners can use information contained in an iconic gesture to assign meaning to a novel verb form. Two experiments demonstrate that adults and 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old children can infer the meaning of novel intransitive verbs from gestures when no other source of information is present. The findings support the idea that gesture might be a source of input available to language learners.