Contact: Christian Basi
Assistant Director for News
(573) 882-4430
[email protected]
HAND GESTURES SYMBOLIZE IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF HUMAN COMMUNICATION, MU RESEARCHER SAYS
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Studies show words make up only seven percent of communication, while body language accounts for more than half of it. While hand gesturing has been viewed as a meaningless activity by some, two University of Missouri-Columbia studies show that it is an integral part of communication, both for the speaker and listener.
Jana Iverson, an assistant professor of psychology, recently completed two studies that analyzed how blind individuals communicate. Iverson studied those who had been blind since birth and covered a wide age range, from toddlers to adults. Iverson found that blind people who have never seen hand gestures in their lives used gestures to communicate, even when talking to other blind individuals.
"Gestures are a very important part of the communication process," Iverson said. "There is a common misconception that communicating is only speaking and that the hand movements we make as we talk are random and irrelevant. Instead, these studies support the theory that gestures not only help to convey meaning to the listener, but also help to coordinate and facilitate the thinking process of the speaker."
Iverson's first study, which was published in Nature, focused on blind individuals ranging in age from nine to 18. Participants were asked to speak with individuals who were both sighted and blind. Even when the participants knew they were talking to another blind person, they continued to use hand gestures.
"Our gestures help us communicate ideas and thoughts, even for the blind," Iverson said. "If people aren't allowed to gesture, it can interfere with their communication and thought processes and certain ideas or expressions may be more difficult to relay. From presenters and speakers to casual conversation, gestures help us think about what we want to say and communicate effectively."
In the second study, which will be published in the coming months in the Journal of Non Verbal Behavior, Iverson watched communication skills develop in blind children younger than two years old. She discovered that blind toddlers used gestures to communicate even before they were able to talk. The most obvious differences between blind and sighted toddlers' gestures were tied to environmental factors. For example, children with sight were able to point to objects across the room when asking for them, while blind children's gestures were limited to the immediate area in front of them.
"For blind persons, speech is an extremely important tool in communicating," Iverson said. "However, they still use gestures, even in early childhood, which provides evidence that hand gestures are important for the speaker and provide assistance in communicating unspoken thoughts and ideas."
In their early years, children have more problems creating communicable sounds than gestures. Until they begin to form words, children use gestures to communicate simple ideas. Studies have shown that a lack of gesturing can be indicative of communication problems and can be a predictor of language problems in children who are late in speech development.
Iverson is continuing her research with grants from the March of Dimes Research Foundation and the MU Research Board. Her future research will focus on how language and gestures develop together and where individual differences in gesturing originate.
-30-
RSS