Gathercole – Development of short-term memory
item length Q. J. Exp. Psychol. 44A, 47–67
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contributions from processing speed, item identification, and short-
57 Case, R.D., Kurland, M. and Goldberg, J. (1982) Operational efficiency
and the growth of short-term memory span J. Exp. Child Psychol. 33,
386–404
term memory J. Exp. Child Psychol. 65, 1–24
63 Bull, R., Johnston, R.S. and Roy, J.A. (1999) Exploring the roles of the
visuospatial sketchpad and central executive in children’s arithmetical
58 Towse, J.N., Hitch, G. and Hutton, U. (1998) A re-evaluation of working
memory capacity in children J. Mem. Lang. 39, 195–217
skills: views from cognition and developmental neuropsychology Dev.
Neuropsychol. 15, 421–442
59 Swanson, H.L. (1999) What develops in working memory? A life span
perspective Dev. Psychol. 35, 986–1000
64 Leather, C.V. and Henry, L.A. (1994) Working memory span and
phonological awareness tasks as a predictors of early reading ability
60 Adams, J.W. and Hitch, G.J. (1997) Working memory and children’s
mental addition J. Exp. Child Psychol. 67, 21–38
J. Exp. Child Psychol. 58, 88–111
65 Daneman, M. and Green, I. (1986) Individual differences in
61 Logie, R.H., Gilhooly, K.J. and Wynn, V. (1994) Counting on working
memory in arithmetic problem solving Mem. Cognit. 22, 395–410
62 Bull, R. and Johnston, R.S. (1997) Children’s arithmetic difficulties:
comprehending and producing words in context J. Mem. Lang. 25, 1–18
66 Gathercole, S.E. and Pickering, S.J. Working memory deficits in
children with special educational needs Br. J. Spec. Educ. (in press)
The role of gesture in
communication and
thinking
Susan Goldin-Meadow
People move their hands as they talk – they gesture. Gesturing is a robust phenomenon,
found across cultures, ages, and tasks. Gesture is even found in individuals blind from birth.
But what purpose, if any, does gesture serve? In this review, I begin by examining gesture
when it stands on its own, substituting for speech and clearly serving a communicative
function. When called upon to carry the full burden of communication, gesture assumes a
language-like form, with structure at word and sentence levels. However, when produced
along with speech, gesture assumes a different form – it becomes imagistic and analog.
Despite its form, the gesture that accompanies speech also communicates. Trained
coders can glean substantive information from gesture – information that is not always
identical to that gleaned from speech. Gesture can thus serve as a research tool, shedding
light on speakers’ unspoken thoughts. The controversial question is whether gesture
conveys information to listeners not trained to read them. Do spontaneous gestures
communicate to ordinary listeners? Or might they be produced only for speakers
themselves? I suggest these are not mutually exclusive functions – gesture serves as
both a tool for communication for listeners, and a tool for thinking for speakers.
P
eople gesture. This phenomenon has been remarked upon
for at least 2000 years, across domains as diverse as philosophy,
rhetoric, theater, divinity and language. The gestures that
are most salient to speakers, and to listeners, are the codified
(or conventionalized) forms that can substitute for speech.
There is, however, another type of gesture that people routinely produce – informal, non-codified hand movements,
fleetingly generated during the course of speaking. The content of these gestures is not typically the object of public
scrutiny. As a result, these speech-accompanying gestures
have the potential to reflect thoughts that may themselves be
relatively unexamined by both speaker and listener. This type
of gesture may thus reveal aspects of thought that are not seen
in other, more codified forms of communication. In this review, I examine both types of gestures – those that substitute
for speech, and those that accompany speech – with an eye
towards understanding the role each plays in communication.
Gestures that substitute for speech
Gestures that have meaning independent of speech, and can
occur on their own without speech, are known as ‘emblems’1.
Emblems have standards of form and can clearly be ‘mispronounced’. For example, imagine producing the North
American ‘okay’ gesture with the pinkie rather than the index
finger touching the thumb – the resulting handshape is not
recognizable as an ‘okay’. For the most part, emblems are
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PII: S1364-6613(99)01397-2
Trends in Cognitive Sciences – Vol. 3, No. 11,
November 1999
Susan GoldinMeadow is at the
Department of
Psychology,
University of
Chicago, 5730 South
Woodlawn Avenue,
Chicago, IL 60637,
USA.
tel: +1 773 702 2585
fax: +1 773 702 0320
e-mail: sgsg@ccp.
uchicago.edu
419
Review
Goldin-Meadow – Gesture in communication and thinking
Box 1. Biological underpinnings of speech, sign and gesture
Sign languages can be characterized by the same kinds of organizational principles as spoken languages. There are, however, surface differences between the
two types of languages, the most striking of which is that many linguistic devices in sign rely on spatial contrasts while speech is linear and non-spatial. In
speakers, damage to the left hemisphere typically results in impairments in linguistic tasks, and damage to the right in impairments in spatial tasks. What
happens then when signers, whose language is grounded in spatial contrasts,
experience brain damage? It turns out that, like speakers, signers with left
hemisphere lesions perform more poorly on language tasks than signers with
right hemisphere lesions. Moreover, they do not show the deficits in spatial
tasks that signers with right hemisphere lesions do. These findings suggest that
sign is processed as linguistic information rather than spatial information, and
that the left hemisphere is specialized for processing that information, be it
transmitted by hand or mouth (Ref. a) (but see the recent discussion between
Hickok, Bellugi and Klima, and Corina, Neville and Bavelier on the possibility
that the right hemisphere also plays a role in sign language processing; Refs b,c).
The same question can be addressed in neurologically intact speakers and
signers. Using behavioral tasks, Corina, Vaid and Bellugi (Ref. d) found left
hemisphere specialization, not only when hearing speakers processed speech,
but also when deaf signers processed sign. Interestingly, they found no evidence
of hemispheric asymmetry when either group processed gesture – neither
emblems (e.g. waving good-bye, giving the thumbs-up) nor sequences of limb
movements that had no meaning. In addition to demonstrating once again the
commonalties between sign and speech, this study underscores the differences
between gestures that are organized around linguistic principles (e.g. ASL) and
gestures that are not so organized.
Thus far, only emblems and nonmeaningful movements have been tested
in these paradigms, leaving two interesting questions unanswered: (1) Do the
non-codified and spontaneous gestures that accompany speech in hearing
persons show left hemisphere dominance? The answer is likely to be ‘no’ as
these gestures do not exhibit the hierarchically segmented structures found in
spoken languages and codified sign languages. (2) Do the idiosyncratically
codified gestures that deaf children of hearing parents create to serve the functions of a primary communication system show left hemisphere dominance? If
truly linguistic, these home-made gesture systems are likely to be processed
like natural language, signed or spoken, and thus are likely to be processed by
the left hemisphere.
References
a Hickok, G., Bellugi, U. and Klima, E.S. (1996) The neurobiology of sign language
and its implications for the neural basis of language Nature 381, 699–702
b Hickok, G., Bellugi, U. and Klima, E.S. (1998) What’s right about the neural
organization of sign language? A perspective on recent neuroimaging results
Trends Cognit. Sci. 2, 465–468
c Corina, D.P., Neville, H.J. and Bavelier, D. (1998) Response Trends Cognit. Sci 2, 468–430
d Corina, D.P., Vaid, J. and Bellugi, U. (1992) The linguistic basis of left hemisphere
specialization Science 255, 1258–1260
used to insult, praise or regulate the behavior of a communication partner2. Speakers who produce emblems are aware
of having done so, and listeners are aware of having seen an
emblem produced. In other words, emblems are consciously
communicative.
Emblems are not, however, combined into gesture strings
to make longer and more complex sentences – they do not
form a linguistic system. The manual modality can, of course,
support a system of gestures that has linguistic structure, as
sign languages of the deaf illustrate. Sign languages, such as
American Sign Language (ASL), are autonomous systems
not based on the spoken languages of the hearing cultures
that surround them3–5. Like spoken languages, sign languages
are structured at syntactic6,7 morphological8,9 and phonological10–12 levels and exhibit left hemisphere dominance (Box 1).
In addition to being primary communication systems,
sign languages are also systems that have histories and are
passed down from one generation of users to the next13. They
are codified linguistic systems that assume the full burden of
communication. There are, however, situations in which
non-codified gesture is forced to take on the functions of a
primary communication system; for example, deaf children
whose hearing losses prevent them from acquiring spoken
language even with intensive oral instruction, and whose
hearing parents have not yet exposed them to sign language.
Gesture is the primary means by which children in this situation communicate14,15. The question is whether their gestures
assume the language-like forms characteristic of a codified
communication system like ASL. The answer is that they do
– on all levels that have been examined thus far.
Deaf children of hearing parents invent gestures that serve
as the ‘lexicon’ of their communication system; the form of
the gestures is stable over several years16. These lexical items
are combined into gesture strings characterized by patterns
reminiscent of ergative structures found in many natural
languages (Box 2). In this sense, the gestures have syntactic
structure. The systems also have morphological structure,
with each gesture itself composed of smaller, meaningful
handshape and motion components17. Finally, the gestures
are language-like in that they are used for many of the functions of natural language – describing the non-present18,
‘talking’ to oneself 19 and commenting metalinguistically on
one’s own or another’s gestures20.
The striking aspect of these gesture systems is that they
are invented by deaf children who have access, not to conventional sign languages such as ASL, but only to the spontaneous gestures that their hearing parents use as they talk.
While the deaf children’s gesture systems have language-like
structure, the hearing parents’ gestures – like the gestures of
all hearing speakers21 – do not22.
Is it possible to predict when the manual modality will
assume language-like structure and when it will not? We23
have suggested that the manual modality takes on grammatical properties only when it is required to carry the full
burden of communication (as in conventional sign languages
of the deaf, and unconventional gesture systems created by
deaf children lacking language models). When the manual
modality is used in conjunction with speech and does not
carry the full burden of communication, it does not assume
language-like form – that is, it does not convey meaning by
rule-governed combinations of discrete units. Rather, these
gestures convey meaning mimetically and idiosyncratically
through continuously varying forms21. The question is whether
the gestures that accompany speech play a role in communication despite the fact that they are not language-like in form.
Gestures that accompany speech
Nonverbal behaviors, including gestures that accompany
speech, have traditionally been assumed to reflect speakers’
feelings and emotions24 and have been used by researchers as
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Box 2. Spontaneous gesture systems created by deaf children
Unlike hearing children and adults who rarely concatenate their spontaneous
gestures into strings (Refs a,b), deaf children who use gesture as their primary
means of communication often convey their message via gesture sentences rather
than single gestures. Deaf children of hearing parents in both American and
Chinese cultures produce gesture sentences that conform closely to a structural
analog of the ergative pattern predominating in some natural languages (Refs c,d);
importantly though, neither English nor Mandarin (the grammatical structure
noted in the deaf children’s gesture systems is therefore not likely to have been
derived from the structure of the spoken languages that surrounded them).
The hallmark of an ergative pattern is that the actor in an intransitive sentence
(‘you’ in the proposition ‘you move there’) is treated differently (i.e. given a different syntactic or morphologic marking) from the actor in a transitive sentence
(‘you’ in ‘you eat pretzels’), and instead is marked like the patient (‘pretzels’). By
contrast, in an accusative language such as English, intransitive actors are treated
like transitive actors and not like patients; for example, both actors precede the
B
1.0 Abe
1.0 Fen
0.5
0.5
0.0
0.0
1.0 Karen
1.0 Ling
0.5
0.0
1.0 David
0.5
Production probability
Production probability
A
0.5
0.0
1.0 Bao
0.5
0.0
0.0
1.0 Marvin
1.0 Qing
0.5
0.5
0.0
TA P IA TA P IA
0.0
TA P IA TA P IA
trends in Cognitive Sciences
Fig. II. A deaf child uses gesture to invite a listener to join him for
pretzels. The child first indicates the action, ‘eat’, and then the actor, ‘you’ (the
third gesture is a repetition of the second, presumably for emphasis). In this
instance, the child omitted a gesture for the patient, the pretzels. Note that a
typical pattern for English would be ‘you eat’ rather than ‘eat you’.
verb (‘you move there’ and ‘you eat pretzels’) while patients follow the verb (‘you
eat pretzels’).
The results of a study that examined how likely American and Chinese deaf
children (and their hearing mothers) were to produce gestures for transitive
actors, patients, and intransitive actors (Ref. e) are illustrated in Fig. I. In seven
of the eight children, gestures were produced significantly more often for patients
(pretzels) than for transitive actors (you, as eater). The crucial question is whether
the deaf children treated intransitive actors (you, as mover) like patients or like
transitive actors. In fact, gestures were produced significantly more often for
intransitive actors than for transitive actors, and there were no significant differences between intransitive actors and patients. This production probability
conformed to an ergative pattern – gesture production was equal for intransitive
actors and patients, and distinct for transitive actors. Like their children, mothers
tended to produce more gestures for patients than for transitive actors in the
spontaneous gestures they produced when talking. However, unlike their children, they showed no reliable patterning of intransitive actors, and thus did
not display an ergative pattern.
In addition to reliably producing some semantic elements at the expense of
others, children were also consistent in where those elements were positioned in
two-gesture strings. Intransitive actors were produced in the first position of a
two-gesture string (‘you move’), as were patients (‘pretzels eat’). The one child
who produced enough transitive actors for analysis showed an ergative pattern
here too (Ref. f ). He produced transitive actors in the second position of a twogesture string (‘eat you’; see Fig. II), thereby distinguishing this type of actor from
both intransitive actors and patients.
The deaf children thus introduced into their gesture systems a pattern that
can be found in natural languages, but that was not found in the spontaneous
gestures their hearing parents used with them.
References
trends in Cognitive Sciences
Fig. I. Probability with which transitive actors (TA), patients (P), and
intransitive actors (IA) are gestured. Probabilities were calculated using
sentences in which three semantic elements could be gestured but only two elements actually were gestured. Both American (A) and Chinese (B) deaf children
(dark bars, also identified by name) showed significant differences in production
patterns across the three elements: gestures were produced reliably more often
for intransitive actors than for transitive actors, but were equally likely for intransitive actors and patients – a structural analog of the ergative pattern found in
certain natural languages. Hearing mothers (white bars) were not consistent in
their treatment of intransitive actors, and thus did not display an ergative pattern.
(Data redrawn from Ref. e.)
a route to speakers’ attitudes. But gesture has the potential to
convey substantive information about a task (Box 3). Are researchers able to take advantage of this source of information
into the speaker’s thoughts?
The first step in addressing this question is to assess
whether gesture can be interpreted reliably and consistently.
A substantial number of investigators have observed the spon-
a Petitto, L.A. (1988) ‘Language’ in the prelinguistic child, in The Development of
Language and Language Researchers (Kessel, F., ed.), pp. 187–221, Erlbaum
b McNeill, D. (1992) Hand and Mind, University of Chicago Press
c Dixon, R.M.W. (1994) Ergativity, Cambridge University Press
d Silverstein, M. (1976) Hierarchy of features and ergativity, in Grammatical Categories
in Australian Languages (Dixon, R.M.W., ed.), pp. 112–171, Australian Institute of
Aboriginal Studies
e Goldin-Meadow, S. and Mylander, C. (1998) Spontaneous sign systems created by
deaf children in two cultures Nature 391, 279–281
f Goldin-Meadow, S. and Mylander, C. (1984) Gestural communication in deaf children:
the effects and non-effects of parental input on early language development
Monogr. Soc. Res. Child Dev. 49
taneous gestures that accompany speech in conversations25,
narratives21, descriptions of objects and actions23, and explanations26. The gestures produced in these situations can be
assigned meanings and, most importantly, independent observers reliably assign the same meaning to the same gesture.
The second step is to determine whether the meanings
experimenters assign to gesture are the meanings the speaker
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Goldin-Meadow – Gesture in communication and thinking
Box 3. Spontaneously produced gestures
McNeill (Ref. a) has identified a number of different types of
gestures that speakers routinely use when they talk:
(1) ‘Iconic’ gestures transparently capture aspects of the semantic
content of speech. For example, when describing how water
was poured from a glass into a dish, a child arced her fist in
the air as though pouring from one container to another.
(2) ‘Metaphoric’ gestures are like iconics in that they are pictorial; however, the pictorial content is abstract rather than concrete. For example, when announcing that what he is about
to narrate is a cartoon, a speaker raised his hands as though
offering the listener an object. Just as we speak metaphorically
about ‘presenting’ an idea or argument, gesture makes an
abstract entity (the cartoon) concrete by treating it as a
bounded object supported by the hands and presented to the
listener.
(3) ‘Beat’ gestures look as though they are beating musical time.
The hand moves along with the rhythmical pulsation of
speech. Unlike iconics and metaphorics, beats tend to have
the same form regardless of the content (a simple flick of the
hand or fingers up and down, or back and forth).
(4) ‘Deictic’ or pointing gestures indicate entities in the conversational space, but they can also be used even when there is
nothing to point at. For example, a speaker asked ‘where did
you come from before?’ while pointing at a space in the room.
The space was not, in fact, the listener’s former location but,
over the course of the conversation, had come to represent
that location.
gesture produced during a liquid conservation task. Meaning is
assigned to each gesture on the basis of the shape and placement
of the hand and form of the motion in relation to its accompanying speech. A flat palm held horizontally without movement
at the water level of a container is the gesture that typically accompanies height explanations in speech (‘it’s tall’); the meaning
‘height’ is therefore assigned to this gesture form. The form–
meaning pairings that result from this process are then used to
code gestures produced by other children performing this same
task.
To ensure independence of the gesture and speech codes, one
experimenter codes gesture without listening to the accompanying speech (i.e. with the sound turned off) and another codes
speech without watching gesture (i.e. with the picture turned off).
A response is considered a gesture–speech mismatch if, in separate passes through the data, the meaning assigned to gesture
is different from the meaning assigned to speech. If, for example,
gesture is assigned the meaning ‘height’ by one coder and the
accompanying speech is assigned the meaning ‘width’ by another,
the response as a whole is considered a mismatch.
Reliability between two experimenters, each of whom transcribes the same videotape independently, is typically high for
coding speech, gesture, and the relationship between the two
(e.g. on conservation tasks, agreement between two coders ranges
from 85% to 94%) (Ref. b).
References
a McNeill, D. (1992) Hand and Mind, University of Chicago Press
It is relatively easy to develop a gestural ‘lexicon’ for a particular task. The lexicon can then be used to code gesture and its
relation to speech in subsequent data. For example, consider
intends. Consider a child asked to complete an ‘explanation
task’ in which she explains her solutions to a set of math problems and, later, a ‘rating task’ in which she judges solutions to
a second set of problems. If gesture is a vehicle through which
speakers express their knowledge – and if experimenters can
correctly assess this knowledge when attributing problemsolving procedures to children based on their gestures in the
explanation task – then, on the rating task, the child should
judge procedures she expressed on the explanation task in
gesture as more ‘acceptable’ than procedures she did not express at all. Children were found to do just that – even when
those procedures were expressed only in gesture and not
anywhere in speech27. In addition to underscoring an important methodological point (that experimenters’ interpretations of gesture are valid), these findings confirm an important conceptual point – that gestures are not random
movements but rather reveal substantive beliefs about the
task at hand.
Gesture can reflect thoughts not conveyed in speech
Speakers use gesture to depict notions ranging from the concrete (e.g. the actions or attributes of cartoon characters) to
the abstract (e.g. mathematical notions, such as quotients,
factors, and even limits in calculus)28. Because gesture rests
on different representational devices from speech, and is not
dictated by standards of form as is speech, it has the potential
to offer a different view into the mind of the speaker. Gesture
b Goldin-Meadow, S. and Sandhofer, C.M. (1999) Gesture conveys
substantive information about a child’s thoughts to ordinary
listeners Dev. Sci. 2, 67–74
permits the speaker to represent ideas that are compatible
with its mimetic and analog format (e.g. shapes, sizes, spatial
relationships) – ideas that may be less compatible with the
discrete and categorical format underlying speech. Thus,
when it accompanies speech, gesture allows speakers to convey
thoughts that may not easily fit into the categorical system
that their spoken language offers29. For example, the gestures
accompanying a description of the East Coast of the United
States can convey aspects of the coastline that would be difficult, if not impossible, to convey in speech. Gesture then has
the potential to display thoughts that are not conveyed in the
speech it accompanies (gesture also provides prelinguistic
children with a vehicle for expressing thoughts they do not
yet have words for, see Box 4).
Consider a six-year-old child attempting to justify his (incorrect) belief that number changes when one of two identical
rows of checkers is spread out. The child says that the number
of checkers in the spread-out row is now ‘different because
you moved them’, thus making it clear, in speech, that he has
focused on what was done to the checkers. However, in the
gestures accompanying this utterance, the child indicates
some understanding of the one-to-one correspondence that
can be established between the two rows of checkers – he
moves a pointing hand back-and-forth between the two rows,
pairing the first checker in row 1 with the first checker in row
2, and so on30. The child speaks about how the checkers were
moved, but he has also noticed – not necessarily consciously
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Box 4. Gesture is a precursor to speech
At a time when children are limited in what they can say, there is
another avenue of expression open to them, one that can extend
the range of ideas they are able to express. Children can gesture.
The earliest gestures children use, typically beginning around 10
months and prior to their first words, are ‘deictics’ (Ref. a). For
example, a child holds up an object to draw an adult’s attention
to that object or, later in development, points at the object. At
the same time, some children also use ‘iconic’ gestures. For example, a child opens and closes her mouth to represent a fish, or
flaps her hands to represent a bird (Refs b,c). ‘Metaphoric’ and
‘beat’ gestures are not produced before speech, and do not appear
until later in development (see also Box 3).
Combining gesture and speech within a single utterance can
also increase the communicative range available to children. Most
of the gesture–speech combinations that young children produce
contain gestures that convey information redundant to the information conveyed in speech; for example, pointing at an object
while naming it. However, young children also produce gesture–
speech combinations in which gesture conveys information that
is different from the information conveyed in speech; for example, gesturing at an object while describing the action to be done
on the object in speech (pointing to an apple and saying ‘give’),
or gesturing at an object and describing the owner of that object
in speech (pointing at a toy and saying ‘mine’) (Refs d–g).
Children begin producing gesture–speech combinations
prior to their first two-word utterances. More impressive is the
fact that the age at which children first produce combinations in
which gesture and speech convey different information (e.g. ‘give’
+ point at apple) predicts the age at which they produce their
first word–word combinations (‘give apple’) (Ref. h). Thus, the
ability to use gesture and speech together to convey different
components of a proposition is a harbinger of the ability to
convey those components solely within speech.
Given theories about the importance of gesture in the origins
of language (Refs i,j), it is interesting to note that chimpanzees
in the wild do not use gesture as human children do (Ref. k).
Chimps use gesture to request here-and-now action of another
chimp (e.g. raising their arms over their heads to invite another
chimp to groom them) (Ref. l). In contrast, children use gesture,
not only to request, but also to comment on objects in their
surrounds (e.g. pointing to comment on distant events). Even
chimps who are raised by humans do not interpret points refer-
– that the spread-out row can be aligned with the untouched
row. This insight is one that the child expresses only through
his hands.
This child has produced a gesture–speech mismatch – a
communicative act in which the information conveyed in
gesture is different from the information conveyed in the
accompanying speech. Gesture–speech mismatches are not
unique to conservation or to six-year-olds, however. We find
the same phenomenon in nine-year-old children asked to
explain their solutions to mathematical equivalence problems
such as 415131__513 (Ref. 31). For example, a child says,
‘I added 4 plus 5 plus 3 plus 3 and got 15’, demonstrating no
awareness of the fact that this is an equation bifurcated by an
equal sign. Her gestures, however, offer a different picture:
she sweeps her left palm under the left side of the equation,
pauses, then sweeps her right palm under the right side. The
child’s gestures clearly demonstrate that, at some level, she
entially (i.e. they do not understand that the point is about a
particular object); rather, they learn to respond to the gesture in
such a way that they can garner a food reward (Ref. m). Finally,
although chimps who have been taught a communication system
do gesture, they rarely use those gestures (or, for that matter,
the system they have been taught) to comment (Ref. n). Thus,
gesture may serve as a way-station on the road to language,
both over ontogenetic and evolutionary time.
References
a Bates, E. et al. (1979) The Emergence of Symbols: Cognition and
Communication in Infancy, Academic Press
b Acredolo, L.P. and Goodwyn, S.W. (1985) Symbolic gesture in language
development: a case study Hum. Dev. 28, 40–49
c Iverson, J.M., Capirci, O. and Caselli, M.S. (1994) From communication
to language in two modalities Cognit. Dev. 9, 23–43
d Goldin-Meadow, S. and Morford, M. (1985) Gesture in early child
language: studies of deaf and hearing children Merrill-Palmer
Quarterly 31, 145–176
e Greenfield, P. and Smith, J. (1976) The Structure of Communication in
Early Language Development, Academic Press
f Morford, M. and Goldin-Meadow, S. (1992) Comprehension and
production of gesture in combination with speech in one-word
speakers J. Child Lang. 9, 559–580
g Zinober, B. and Martlew, M. (1985) Developmental changes in four
types of gesture in relation to acts and vocalizations from 10 to 21
months Br. J. Dev. Psychol. 3, 293–306
h Goldin-Meadow, S. and Butcher, C. Pointing toward two-word
speech in young children, in Pointing: Where Language, Culture, and
Cognition Meet (Kita, S., ed.), Cambridge University Press (in press)
i Hewes, G.W. (1973) Primate communication and the gestural
origin of language Curr. Anthropol. 14, 5–24
j Donald, M. (1991) Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the
Evolution of Culture and Cognition, Harvard University Press
k Tomasello, M. and Camaioni, L. (1997) A comparison of the gestural
communication of apes and human infants Hum. Dev. 40, 7–24
l Plooij, F.X. (1978) Some basic traits of language in wild chimpanzees?,
in Action, Gesture and Symbol: The Emergence of Language (Lock, A.,
ed.), pp. 111–131, Academic Press
m Povinelli, D. et al. (1997) Exploitation of pointing as a referential
gesture in young children, but not adolescent chimpanzees
Cognit. Dev. 2, 423–461
n Greenfield, P.M. and Savage-Rumbaugh, E.S. (1991) Imitation,
grammatical development and the invention of protogrammar by
an ape, in Biological and Behavioral Determinants of Language
Development (Krasnegor, N.A. et al. eds), pp. 235–262, Earlbaum
knows the equal sign breaks the string into two parts. Mismatches have also been found in toddlers32, preschoolers33,
adolescents34 and even adults35. Nor are mismatches restricted to number puzzles – they arise in spontaneous talk36,
narratives21, reasoning about physics problems37, moral
dilemmas38 and many other contexts.
In a mismatch, a speaker conveys two distinct ideas about
the very same problem. But the explanations in which gestures
are produced often come after the fact. Do speakers who produce mismatches in their post hoc explanations of a problem
also activate two ideas when solving that problem on-line?
The evidence suggests that they do (Box 5) – mismatchers activate more than one idea, not only when explaining a math
problem, but also when solving that same type of math
problem. The cognitive state that underlies mismatch thus
involves having, and activating, more than one idea on a
single task.
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Box 5. How do gesture–speech mismatchers solve problems on-line?
(1) Both matching and mismatching children were expected to activate a single
procedure per problem when solving easy math problems. They should thus
expend the same amount of effort on these problems and should recall the
same proportion of word lists after solving them – as indeed they did.
(2) Matchers were also expected to activate a single procedure when solving
hard math problems. Their performance on word recall should therefore
not differ for easy versus hard problems – and it did not.
(3) In contrast, mismatchers were expected to active two procedures when
solving hard math problems. They should therefore have less capacity left
over to recall words after solving these problems and should perform poorly
on this task, particularly when capacity is taxed on the three-word lists. As
predicted, mismatchers recalled significantly fewer three-word lists after
solving hard math problems than did matchers.
Thus, when solving the hard math problems, mismatchers carry the extra
burden of too many unintegrated ideas, a burden which appears to take cognitive
effort, leaving less effort available for other tasks.
A
Match one-word
Match three-word
Mismatch one-word
Mismatch three-word
Proportion of correct
math problems
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
B
Easy
math problem
Hard
math problem
Easy
math problem
Hard
math problem
1.0
Proportion of correct
word lists
If explanations are an accurate reflection of the processes that take place in
problem-solving, mismatching children, who produce two procedures on each
explanation of their math problems (one in speech and a second in gesture),
should also activate two procedures when solving each problem. In contrast,
matching children, who produce a single procedure per explanation, ought to
activate only one procedure when solving each problem. If so, mismatchers
work harder to arrive at their incorrect answers than matchers, and should
have less cognitive effort left over to tackle other tasks.
Goldin-Meadow et al. (Ref. a) tested this prediction by first asking children
to solve and explain a series of mathematical equivalence problems. Their
explanations were used to divide children into matchers and mismatchers.
Children then participated in another math task and a concurrent word recall
task. On each trial, children were given a list of words to remember, either a oneword list (which was not expected to tax cognitive capacity) or a three-word
list (which was more likely to strain capacity). Children were also given a math
problem to solve while remembering the words – either a hard problem (e.g.
316171__518) which tends to elicit two-procedure explanations from
mismatchers, and one-procedure explanations from matchers; or an easy
problem (e.g. 41713155__) which elicits one-procedure explanations from
all children.
‘Easy’ problems were indeed easy, and were solved correctly by all children
(Fig. I). ‘Hard’ problems were hard and solved by none, irrespective of whether
the problems were solved along with one- versus three-word lists. The key
finding involves the proportion of word lists the children recalled correctly as
a function of the type of math problem (easy or hard) that accompanied the
task (Fig. IB). Three points are noteworthy:
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
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Fig. I. Performance on math problems and a concurrently administered
word-recall task. (A) The proportion of easy (e.g. 41713155__) and hard (e.g.
316171__518) math problems that were solved correctly by matching and mismatching children while simultaneously recalling one- versus three-word lists.
(Solid lines, data referring to matching children; broken lines, data referring to
mismatching children; error bars indicate SE.) All children solved the ‘easy’ problems correctly but none solved the ‘hard’ problems. (B) The proportion of oneand three-word lists that were recalled correctly by matching and mismatching
children while simultaneously solving easy versus hard math problems. (Symbols
and lines the same as in A.) Mismatching children’s recall differed from matching children’s recall only on three-word lists and only when solving hard math
problems. (Modified from Ref. a.)
Reference
a Goldin-Meadow, S. et al. (1993) Transitions in learning: evidence for simultaneously
activated strategies J. Exp. Psychol. 19, 92–107
Gesture can index cognitive instability
Gesture–speech mismatch is of particular interest to researchers because it is a characteristic of learners who are in
transition with respect to a task. Children who produce a relatively large proportion of gesture–speech mismatches when
explaining their (incorrect) solutions to a task are particularly
likely to benefit from instruction in that task – significantly
more than children who produce few mismatches. Mismatch
has been found to be a reliable index of readiness-to-learn in
conservation30 and mathematical equivalence31 tasks. Thus,
when children produce mismatches, they are ‘at risk’ for learning. They are also, however, at risk for regression. The same
proportion of children who progress to a stable correct state
when given instruction in the math task, regress to a stable
incorrect state when given no instruction39. Mismatchers
are apparently in a state of cognitive instability, open to
instruction if it is provided but vulnerable to regression if
it is not.
If mismatch is indeed a transitional period, we would
expect learners to proceed from a stable state, through mismatch, to another stable state but at a higher level. Microgenetic methods were developed so that learners’ progress
could be systematically monitored around periods of greatest
change40. Alibali and Goldin-Meadow39 used the technique
to chart the course of children’s development of mathematical
equivalence over the short term. They instructed children
individually and observed each child’s step-by-step progress.
Focusing on children who gestured, they found that almost
all of the children passed through two, or even three, of the
following steps in order: (1) a stable state in which the child
produced gesture–speech matches conveying incorrect procedures; (2) an unstable state in which the child produced
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Table 1. Gesture–speech matches and mismatches used by children as they progress towards
mastery in two tasks
Modality
Matching explanations
(incorrect)
Mismatching explanations
(both incorrect)
Matching explanations
(correct)
Sample responses to the mathematical equivalence problem 6+4+7=__+7
Speech
‘I added the 6, the 4 and the 7’
(add-to-equal-sign)
‘I added the 6, the 4 and the 7’
(add-to-equal-sign)
‘I made this side equal to that
side’ (equalize-two-sides)
Gesture
Points at 6, 4 and and left 7
(add-to-equal-sign)
Points at 6, 4, left 7 and right 7
(add-all-numbers)
Palm sweeps under left side
then under right (equalizetwo-sides)
Sample responses to a liquid-conservation taska
Speech
‘This one’s tall and this one’s
short’ (comparison of heights)
‘This one’s tall and this one’s short’
(comparison of heights)
‘This one’s tall but it’s skinny’
(compensation)
Gesture
Flat palm marks water level of
glass then water level of dish
(comparison of heights)
Narrow C demarcates width of glass
then wider C demarcates width
of dish (comparison of widths)
Flat palm marks water level of
glass then narrow C demarcates
its width (compensation)
a
In this task, water is poured from a tall, thin glass into a short, wide dish.
gesture–speech mismatches; (3) a stable state in which the
child again produced gesture–speech matches, now conveying
correct procedures.
Thus, as predicted, children tended to proceed through
mismatch in acquiring mathematical equivalence. Interestingly, the few children who skipped the mismatching state and
progressed directly from an incorrect to a correct matching
state were less able to generalize their knowledge than the
children who passed through the mismatching state. Skippers
appear to learn the concept less thoroughly than those who
pass through mismatch.
Is gesture in advance of speech when children are in a
mismatching state? Mismatchers’ gestures often convey ideas
that are more developed than those they convey in speech41,
as illustrated in the math and conservation examples presented
thus far. But speech can also convey the mature ideas while
gesture lags behind, as is typically found in moral judgment
tasks38. Finally, gesture and speech can both convey incorrect
notions, albeit different ones, as illustrated in the mismatching
examples in Table 1.
Why might mismatch be associated with transition and
learning? Mismatch is an index of variability, and variability
is considered by many theorists to be essential to developmental progress42,43. A number of studies have demonstrated
variability in children’s repertoires across problems (e.g. one
procedure is used to solve a problem at time 1, and another
is used to solve the problem at time 2)44,45. Gesture–speech
mismatch is unique in that it reflects within-problem variability – the child produces two different procedures, one in
speech and the other in gesture, on the problem at the same
time. Activating two procedures on the same problem may be
essential for eventually coordinating the two procedures, or
resolving the conflict between them. It turns out, however,
that children who produce a large number of mismatches
also tend to have across-problem variability – they have more
different kinds of ideas in their repertoires than children
who produce few mismatches. Moreover, the ‘extra’ ideas
that mismatchers have are found only in gesture and not in
speech (Box 6). Thus, the variability that may make mismatchers particularly vulnerable to instruction can only be
detected by looking at the children’s hands, not by listening
to their words.
Do gestures communicate to listeners?
We have seen that gesture can communicate unique information about a learner’s state, and that researchers have
begun to take advantage of this ‘window’ to the mind. The
question is whether the information displayed in gesture is
accessible to ordinary listeners not trained in laboratory
settings.
This is a controversial question. On the one hand,
Kendon46 concludes that listeners do attend to gesture and
alter their understanding of utterances accordingly. On the
other hand, Krauss and his colleagues47 argue that gesture
has little communicative value. However, many of the relevant studies do not control the type of speech that accompanies gesture; without such control it is often difficult to
demonstrate definitively that gesture is influencing understanding. Other studies narrow the field too much, exploring
only gestures that are selected by observers to be completely
redundant with the speech they accompany. Indeed, not
enough attention has been paid to gesture that conveys different information from speech. One might expect that it is
precisely in situations of gesture–speech mismatch that gesture
can play its largest role in communication.
A number of recent studies have found that ordinary
listeners can reliably ‘read’ gesture when it conveys different
information from speech48–52, even when gesture is unedited
and fleeting, as it is in natural communication53. Take, for
example, an untrained adult asked to assess the child described
earlier who, in speech, focused on how the checkers were
moved but, in gesture, highlighted the one-to-one alignment
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Box 6. Gesture–speech mismatchers have variable
problem-solving repertoires
References
a Adolph, K.E. (1997) Learning in the development of infant
locomotion Monogr. Soc. Res. Child Dev. 62
b Siegler, R.S. (1996) Emerging Minds: The Process of Change in
Children’s Thinking, Oxford University Press
c Siegler, R.S. and McGilly, K. (1989) Strategy choices in children’s
time-telling, in Time and Human Cognition: A Life Span Perspective
(Levin, I. and Zakay, D., eds), pp. 185–218, Elsevier
between the checkers in the rows. The adult attributed to this
child reasoning based not only on the fact that the checkers
had been moved, but also on one-to-one correspondence.
Ordinary listeners can thus take advantage of the unique insight gesture offers into the thoughts speakers have, but do
not express in words.
Given that a listener can extract substantive information
from gesture, it is perhaps not surprising that speech can be
affected by the gestural company it keeps. Gesture can facilitate comprehension of a spoken message when it conveys that
same message (gesture–speech match). But gesture can also
impede comprehension of a spoken message when it conveys
a different message (gesture–speech mismatch). Gesture is
clearly part of the communicative process, one that at times
can lead the listener astray (Box 7).
To summarize thus far, gesture not only conveys substantive information to well-trained coders who have the advantage of time and instant replay on their side, but it also
d Siegler, R.S. (1999) Strategic development Trends Cognit. Sci. 3,
430–435
e Goldin-Meadow, S., Alibali, M.W. and Church, R.B. (1993) Transitions
in concept acquisition: using the hand to read the mind Psychol.
Rev. 100, 279–297
4
No. of different procedures in repertoire
Recent research has shown that, at a single moment in time, children frequently have in their repertoires a variety of strategies or
approaches to a problem (Refs a–d). Children who tend to produce gesture–speech mismatches produce more than one notion
on a single problem and, in this sense, are variable in their responses. However, do these children also have variability in their
repertoires when taken as a whole? To address this question,
Goldin-Meadow, Alibali and Church (Ref. e) determined how
many different problem-solving procedures a child produced
across a set of six math problems. They also determined the
modality (or modalities) in which each different procedure was
produced: in speech and never in gesture; in gesture and never in
speech; or in both speech and gesture (although not necessarily
on the same problem). The calculations were done separately for
children who produced a large proportion of mismatches, and for
children who produced few mismatches. Overall, mismatchers
produced significantly more different kinds of procedures than
matchers (Fig. I). They thus had more variability in their repertoires, which might well account for their ‘vulnerability’ to
instruction.
In terms of modalities in which these procedures appeared, it
is interesting to note that neither group of children produced
many procedures in speech alone. Almost all of the information
that the children possessed about this task was accessible to gesture,
either with or without speech. The groups also did not differ in
the number of different procedures they produced in both speech
and gesture. Where the groups did differ, however, was in the
number of different procedures they produced in gesture alone.
The mismatchers produced signifcantly more procedures in
gesture (and not in speech) than the matchers. Thus, the ‘extra’
procedures that the mismatchers had in their repertoires were
all unique to gesture.
3
2
1
0
Mismatching
children
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Fig. I. Number of different problem-solving procedures in
the repertoires of mismatching and matching children. A
procedure was classified as a function of the modality (or modalities) in which it was produced by a child across six problems. Overall,
mismatchers produced significantly more types of procedures than
matchers, although the distribution varied in the two groups,
particularly in procedures produced in gesture but not speech
(dark grey). Procedures in speech and gesture, light grey; procedures in speech but not gesture, white. (Adapted from Ref. e.)
conveys information to naive listeners. Listeners glean meaning from gesture which, in turn, has an effect on how the
meaning conveyed in the accompanying speech is interpreted.
Gesture thus has the potential to play a role in cognitive
change. Gesture can signal to those who interact with a
learner that a particular notion is in the learner’s repertoire.
Listeners may then alter their behavior accordingly, perhaps
giving explicit instruction in that notion if it is correct, or
providing input that encourages the learner to abandon the
notion if it is misguided. If gesture can play this type of role
in spontaneous interaction, learners may be able to shape the
day-to-day input they receive just by moving their hands.
Do gestures function for speakers?
We have been proceeding as though communication is gesture’s only function – but is it? The fact that gestures communicate to listeners does not preclude the possibility that gesture
functions for speakers as well. After all, speakers gesture when
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Box 7. Teachers gesture in math tutorials and children pay attention
Gesture is understood by listeners asked to observe, but not participate, in an
interaction. However, in order to argue that gesture plays an important role in
communication, it is essential to demonstrate that listeners can ‘read’ gesture
when they themselves are participants in the conversation. Goldin-Meadow,
Kim and Singer (Ref. a) asked teachers to instruct a series of children individually in mathematical equivalence and videotaped the tutorials. As the teachers
did most of the talking – and gesturing – in the interactions, the experimenters
explored how the children responded to the problem-solving procedures that
teachers produced in speech and gesture. A child was conservatively assumed
to understand the teacher’s procedure when the child responded by repeating
or paraphrasing that procedure.
Child reiterations
of teachers' procedures
A
0.6
B 0.6
0.5
0.5
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0
Speech
0
Gesture
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Fig. I. Mean proportion of child reiterations of teachers’ problem-solving
procedures. (A) The proportion of child reiterations following the teacher’s
speech when accompanied by matching gesture (light grey), no gesture (white),
or mismatching gesture (dark grey). (Error bars indicate SE.) (B) The proportion
of child reiterations following the teacher’s gesture when accompanied by
mismatching speech (i.e. gesture component of a mismatch). Child reiterations
followed procedures produced in the gesture component of a mismatch 20%
of the time – approximately as often as they followed procedures produced in
the speech component. (Modified from Ref. a.)
no one is watching54. Indeed, blind speakers gesture routinely,
even though they themselves have never seen gesture – and
they do so even when they are knowingly speaking with
listeners who are themselves blind55.
Gesture plays a variety of roles for speakers. Gesture helps
speakers retrieve words from memory56. Gesture reduces cognitive burden, thereby freeing up effort that can be allocated
to other tasks. For example, pointing improves young children’s performance on counting tasks particularly if the pointing is done by the children themselves57. As another example,
gesturing while explaining a math task improves performance
on a simultaneously performed word recall task58. Gesturing
thus appears to increase resources available to the speaker,
perhaps by shifting the burden from verbal to spatial memory.
Gesture may also provide a route through which learners
can access new thoughts. For example, children participating
in science lessons frequently use gesture to foreshadow the
ideas they themselves eventually articulate in speech59 perhaps
needing to express those ideas in a manual medium before
articulating them in words. Because the representational
formats underlying gesture are mimetic and analog rather than
discrete21, gesture may permit the learner to represent ideas
that lend themselves to these formats and that are not yet developed enough to be encoded in speech. Take, for example,
the child described earlier who demonstrated a clear under-
Gesture was found both to help and to undermine the child’s comprehension of teacher speech (Fig. IA). Children were more likely to repeat a procedure the teacher produced in speech when that speech was accompanied by
a matching gesture than when it was accompanied by no gesture at all. When
gesture conveys the same message as speech, perhaps not surprisingly, it helps
the listener arrive at that message. Conversely, children were less likely to repeat
a procedure the teacher produced in speech when that speech was accompanied
by a mismatching gesture than when it was accompanied by no gesture at all.
When gesture conveys a different message from speech, it detracts from the
listener’s ability to arrive at the message in speech.
Were children able to glean substantive information from the teacher’s gestures? When the teacher procedures were expressed uniquely in gesture (i.e. in
the gesture component of a mismatch) children reiterated these procedures
20% of the time (Fig. IB). Although this might seem like a small proportion,
note that child reiterations followed teacher procedures produced uniquely in
speech only 25% of the time (compare the dark grey bars in Fig. IA and B).
Moreover, children frequently ‘translated’ procedures that the teacher produced
uniquely in gesture into their own speech, thus clearly demonstrating that they
fully understood their meaning. Children were able to glean information from
teachers’ gestures even when they were active participants in the interaction.
Indeed, there is anecdotal evidence fom the videotaped teacher–child tutorials that children zero in on a teacher’s gestures, sometimes to their own disadvantage. For example, while telling a child to make both sides of the equation
4+6+7+__=7 equal, a teacher inadvertently pointed at the four numbers in
the problem – a series of gestures children typically produce when they add
all of the numbers to get the solution. The child ignored the teacher’s speech
and focused on her gestures. In the next turn, much to the teacher’s surprise,
the child gave 24 as his solution, the solution obtained by adding up all four
numbers. Gesture is a potentially powerful source of input for children and
adults alike.
Reference
a Goldin-Meadow, S., Kim, S. and Singer, M. What the teacher’s hands tell the student’s
mind about math J. Educ. Psychol. (in press)
standing of the one-to-one correspondence between checkers
in his gestures, but seemed unable to articulate this notion in
speech. The ease with which the two rows of checkers can be
paired in gesture may have facilitated the child’s expression
of this notion. Once having entered the child’s repertoire, this
new-found idea can begin to change the system. At some
point, the child will have to reconcile his belief that the
number of checkers changed with the fact that the checkers
in the moved and unmoved rows can be put into one-toone alignment. By offering an alternative route in which developing ideas can be tried out and expressed, gesture may
itself facilitate the process of change.
Gesture may also have an advantage over speech in that
novel (and perhaps contradictory) information can be brought
into a learner’s repertoire without disrupting the current system. Spontaneous gestures are not part of a culturally recognized system and thus rarely are subject to comment and
criticism. As a result, gesture is an ideal modality within
which to consider for the first time notions that are not fully
developed. Not only are the notions conveyed in gesture
likely to go unchallenged by others, but they are also likely to
go unchallenged by oneself. A speaker can unknowingly
‘sneak in’ an idea in gesture that does not cohere well with
the set of ideas the speaker routinely expresses in speech.
Gesture may be a perfect place to try out innovative ideas
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Language: Biological Constraints on Linguistic Form, Verlag Chemie
Outstanding questions
4 Klima, E. and Bellugi, U. (1979) The Signs of Language, Harvard
University Press
• Deaf children of hearing parents can invent the rudiments of a languagelike system without the benefit of a conventional language model, or
even a willing communication partner (the children’s hearing parents are
committed to teaching them to speak). How far can an individual child
(as opposed to a society) go in fashioning a linguistic system out of
gesture? Are there certain types of constructions and uses that can only
be introduced into a language system with group support?
• What are the forces that shape the particular linguistic patterns found in
the deaf children’s gesture systems? They are not shaped by conventional
language, nor are they modeled after their hearing parents’ spontaneous
gestures. One possibility is that the patterns reflect the way children
structure events in general or, more specifically, the way they structure
events for the purposes of communication.
• The spontaneous gestures that speakers use along with their talk do not
feel as though they are consciously produced – one is not typically aware
of having gestured. What would happen if speakers were forced to be
aware of their gestures? Would those gestures no longer have privileged
access to the speaker’s unspoken thoughts?
• What are the contexts in which listeners are able to ‘read’ gesture?
Listeners typically have difficulty apprehending both of the messages
conveyed in a mismatch (the message in speech, and the message in
gesture). What determines which of the two messages will be read? Are
there conditions under which listeners can grasp both messages?
• Does gesturing help speakers think? There is growing evidence that
gesture can facilitate word recall and help conserve cognitive effort. Are
these effects limited to certain types of domains – the spatial domain, for
example, which the manual modality is particularly well-suited to portray?
5 Lane, H. and Grosjean, F., eds (1980) Recent Perspectives on American
Sign Language, Erlbaum
6 Lidell, S. (1980) American Sign Language Syntax, Mouton
7 Lillo-Martin, D. (1991) Universal Grammar and American Sign Language:
Setting the Null Argument Parameters, Kluwer
8 Supalla, T. (1986) The classifier system in American Sign Language, in
Noun Classes and Categorization (Craig, C., ed.), pp. 181–215, John
Benjamins
9 Supalla, T. and Newport, E.L. (1978) How many seats in a chair? The
derivation of nouns and verbs in American Sign Language, in
Understanding Language through Sign Language Research (Siple, P.,
ed.), pp. 91–132, Academic Press
10 Corina, D. and Sandler, W. (1993) On the nature of phonological
structure in sign language Phonology 10, 165–207
11 Perlmuttter, D.M. (1992) Sonority and syllable structure in American
Sign Language Linguist. Inq. 23, 407–442
12 Padden, C. and Perlmutter, D (1987) American Sign Language and the
architecture of phonological theory Nat. Lang. Linguist. Theory 5,
335–375
13 Frishberg, N. (1975) Arbitrariness and iconicity: historical change in
American Sign Language Language 51, 696–719
14 Tervoort, B.T. (1961) Esoteric symbolism in the communication behavior
of young deaf children Am. Ann. Deaf. 106, 436–480
15 Moores, D.F. (1974) Nonvocal systems of verbal behavior, in Language
Perspectives (Schiefelbusch, R.L. and Lloyd, L.L., eds), pp. 377–417,
University Park Press
16 Goldin-Meadow, S. et al. (1994) Nouns and verbs in a self-styled
gesture system: what’s in a name? Cognit. Psychol. 27, 259–319
17 Goldin-Meadow, S., Mylander, C. and Butcher, C. (1995) The resilience
simply because neither listener nor speaker is consciously aware
of the fact that those ideas do not fit.
of combinatorial structure at the word level: morphology in self-styled
gesture systems Cognition 6, 195–262
18 Morford, J.P. and Goldin-Meadow, S. (1997) From here to there and
Conclusion
When gesture is called upon to fulfill the burdens of a primary communication system – that is, when it is explicitly
communicative – it takes on the forms of language, conveying meaning by systematic combinations of discrete units.
However, when gesture is used spontaneously along with
speech – when it is not an acknowledged vehicle of communication – it is not language-like in form, and assumes instead
a mimetic and analog format that allows it to capture ideas
not easily expressed in speech. As such, the gestures that accompany speech have the potential to display thoughts that
are not conveyed in speech. These speech-accompanying
gestures serve two, not mutually exclusive functions. Gesture
provides speakers with another representational format in
addition to speech, one that can reduce cognitive effort and
serve as a tool for thinking. Gesture also provides listeners with
a second representational format, one that allows access to
the unspoken thoughts of the speaker and thus enriches
communication.
now to then: the development of displaced reference in homesign and
English Child Dev. 68, 420–435
19 Goldin-Meadow, S. (1997) The resilience of language in humans, in Social
Influences on Vocal Development (Snowdon, C.T. and Hausberger, M.,
eds), pp. 293–311, Cambridge University Press
20 Singleton, J.L., Morford, J.P. and Goldin-Meadow, S. (1993) Once is not
enough: standards of well-formedness in manual communication
created over three different timespans Language 69, 683–715
21 McNeill, D. (1992) Hand and Mind, University of Chicago Press
22 Goldin-Meadow, S. and Mylander, C. (1983) Gestural communication
in deaf children: the non-effects of parental input on language
development Science 221, 372–374
23 Goldin-Meadow, S., McNeill, D. and Singleton, J. (1996) Silence is
liberating: removing the handcuffs on grammatical expression in the
manual modality Psychol. Rev. 103, 34–55
24 Friedman, H.S. (1979) The concept of skill in nonverbal communication:
implications for understanding social interaction, in Skill in Nonverbal
Communication (Rosenthal, R., ed.), pp. 2–27, Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain
25 Kendon, A. (1980) Gesticulation and speech: two aspects of the process
of utterance, in Relationship of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication
(Key, M.R., ed.), pp. 207–228, Mouton
26 Crowder, E.M. and Newman, D. (1993) Telling what they know: the
role of gesture and language in children’s science explanations Pragmat.
Cognit. 1, 341–376
27 Garber, P., Alibali, M.W. and Goldin-Meadow, S. (1998) Knowledge
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by grants from the Spencer Foundation, the
28 McNeill, D. (1987) Psycholinguistics: A New Approach, Harper & Row
March of Dimes, the National Institutes of Child Health and Human
29 Goldin-Meadow, S. and McNeill, D. (1999) The role of gesture and
Development (R01 HD18617), the National Institute on Deafness and
mimetic representation in making language the province of speech, in
other Communication Disorders (RO1 DC00491), and the National Science
The Descent of Mind (Corballis, M.C. and Lea, S., eds), pp. 155–172,
Oxford University Press
Foundation (BNS 8810769).
30 Church, R.B. and Goldin-Meadow, S. (1986) The mismatch between
gesture and speech as an index of transitional knowledge Cognition
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31 Perry, M., Church, R.B. and Goldin-Meadow, S. (1988) Transitional
knowledge in the acquisition of concepts Cognit. Dev. 3, 359–400
32 Gershkoff-Stowe, L. and Smith, L.B. (1997) A curvilinear trend in naming
2 Kendon, A. (1981) Geography of gesture Semiotica 37, 129–163
3 Bellugi, U. and Studdert-Kennedy, M., eds (1980) Signed and Spoken
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cognitive
te to
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this
short
summarisection, by
es, shou
ld
Facing
up (or
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Music
brainwal
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subjects
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to seque
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common li compared
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sses
with stimu
objects.
of these
musical
listen
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a stron
chords.
chords
li of
turn
ger respo The authors
n faces
highly
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velopment could help
also found
shown
nse when
incongruo were mode
to guide , and
full front
rately
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mony
us in
models
the deor
when
and
next
-view face subjects were
terms
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shown
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of harface-recognbrain function, generation of
houses.
dness
front-view photos than
incorporat
given
Three-quar
ition mech
listened ones. The same
the
elicited
ing
to Engli
anisms.
ter-view photos of
References
a
which
sh sente subjects also
face
of huma greater respo
inclu
nces, some
nse than photos
1 Kanwi
ungramm ded words
n hand
of
sher, N.
greater
that
s,
photos
et al. (1997)
response and intact
given the atical or hard were eithe
area: a
tone faces
r
The fusifor
modul
than scram faces a
e in human
For both preceding synta to integrate
m face
specialized
bled
conducted . Recently,
extrastriate
for face
Kanwisher twothe incon linguistic and ctic structure.
cortex
17, 4302–4
percep
ing both an additional
musical
et al.
tion J.
311
upright
componengruous targe
Neuro
study 2
2 Kanwi
sci.
ts elicit stimuli,
and inver
invol
sher, N.
t in the
degree
et al. (1998)
ted grays vERP. Moreed a P600
inversi
of cong
on on
cale
The effect
over,
fects on
ruency
the human
of face
Cognit
had simila the
the P600
fusifor
ion 68,
domains.
m face
B1–B11
r efamplitude
area
for both
P600 does These results
sugg
processes, not reflect langu est that the
What struct
but rathe
age-specif
gration
r struc
the opera ures and proce
ic
processes
tural intespecific.
tion of
sses medi
that
tion in
selective
The autho are not doma
ate
the
there
visual
was direc
rs point
inare
suggests human brain
attented to
? One
out that
selectively cases of brain
that objec
eral stimu
one of
different
t repre hypothesis
damage
the four
impairs
musical
findings li. The authors
periphing capaclocations comp sentations at
harmonic the perceptionthat
argue that
are
ete
out affec
that atten consistent
these
of
that attenity in the visua for processting synta relationships
with
tion is
the oppo
l system
withtation
ctic know
protecting the notion
competitio tion works
of
site is
by biasin , and
these
a repre
also true. ledge, and
tion. It the target item
location. n in favour
deficits
g
is also
from compsenHowever,
might
terms
Recordings of the atten this
possible,
difference
awake
of dama
be expla
etided
of single
monkeys
between though, that
ge to
knowledge
ined in
succe
a
with this
cells in
the
domain-sp
ssive
have been
simultaneo
idea 1. The
main-unsp base as
ecific
from otherstimulation
us and
to an
opposed
response consistent
optimal
factors, might have
processes. ecific struc
to
ence in
of a neuro
stimulus
stantially
Identifying tural integ dopresentatio such as the arisen
n
is
lates of
two condi
differpresented when an irrele reduced subthe neura ration
n rate
harmonic
between
tactic
simultaneo vant stimu
experimen tions. Howe
processing processing l correcation
the
lus is
ver, in
usly at
in the recep
t, the
and syngration
a contr
stimuli
the anim
authors
processes independent
tive field. another lool
at
al
understan
of
presented
should
that the a constant
the comp directs its atten However,
rate and
allow a interesponse
if
domain-sp ding of the
tion to
better
item prese
show
to
field, the eting stimuli
one of
ecific disor treatment
nted alone a single perip ed
in the
of the
it was
receptive
ders.
heral
the stimuresponses are
was
prese
Reference
as
three other nted simul lowered when
Kastner lus is presented large as when
taneously
1 Patel,
and collea
items.
alone
differ
A.D. et
This sugge
that a
with
. Now,
ence
gues provi
al. (1998)
similar
relatio
sts that
een succe
de
taneousandbetw
Proces
mech edited
byevide
James
Edward
Rosenfeld,
MIT the
Press, 1998.
ns in langua
in huma
sing syntac
nceA. Anderson
stimu
ssive and
ns 2. Using anism migh
ge and
related
lation is
tic
to differ
t opera (xi + 434
cortical
music:
potential
not
fMRI,
£31.95/$39.95
pages)
ISBN 0 262
01167 0 simul
ent
an eventrespo
study J.
they exam te
presentatio simply relate 717–73
findings
Cogn.
jects prese nses to four
3
d
ined
Neuro
address
n rates.
sci. 10,
nted eithe
adjac
of direct
directly
or one
the mech These
ed atten
r simul ent obat
gation
anisms
Although a time in What taneo
usly, neural networks
will
thattion. and
Furth
Bertrand
is worth the price
rapid is it about
er invesRussell
allels betw explore the
succession
stimulation the total amou
ti- which you get several
ion
makes
of
the uing
book (for
intrig
. excitable?
rizat
nt ofpeople so
imaging een single-cell
the same (integrated
tego
par- classic McCulloch and
retina
resultneuralAnderson,
a noted
versions).
and funct The
nd ca
l
over James
s revea
pts a
time) was
ionalditions, in the two exper
once
References
network
and Edward led here.
Pitts papers were
written when Pitts
. – C
imental researcher,
et al
Simultane cortical respo Rosenfeld,
mon
cona
journalist,
had
the
splenwas
still
in
his
teens
and
living
with
1
Solo
nses
Moran
ous prese
, J. and
differed.
activity
ntationdid idea
Desimof
an oral
history
than
one, R.McCulloch and his wife. Pitts subseevoked to generateattent
ion gates
this differ successive
(1985)
less
research extras
by talking
to most
quently
gravitated to a second fatherpreseneural-net
Selecti
visual
ence was
ntatio
ve
proces
higher
triate cortex
more prono
and
sing inNorbert Wiener. Wiener and
proven mathematically, that neural
of then,pioneering
in the field.
figure,
cortical
2 figures
Science
Kastne
the
areas.
unced
duction
r, S., De
782–78
networks cannot ever do anything inMoreover,
The result,in TalkingUnger
Nets,
is anWeerd
extra- 229,
McCulloch
had a fallingSub
out because
with
4
scribe
, P.,
was much simultaneo
the releider,
teresting.’ Widrow, in contrast, says, ‘I
ordinary
document that
is L.G.
a page- Desim
Mrs.
Wiener
one,
us prese
less sever
R. and didn’t like McCulloch; Pittsto TICS
directe
(1998)
ntation
d attent
Mecha
e whenturner
couldn’t understand what the point of
for cognitive scientists.
wasnisms
caught in the middle, had a nerion in
cortex
at
attention
the human
of
90
revealed
was, why the hell they
Physics is a science. as
Entymology
is a
vous
breakdown, and50%
drankdisc
himself to
extras
by functi
triate
ount usi[Perceptrons]
282 108
1364 661
did it. I figured that they must have
1 is a toolbox
science. ‘Neural networks’
an early grave. And we haven’t even
gotten inspired to write that book re– a collection of tools for the simulagotten to Minsky and Papert yet.
ally early on to squelch the field, to do
tion and analysis of complex systems.
The tale of how Minsky and Papert
what they could to stick pins in the balThese tools were developed by people
slew the neural-net dragon in the
loon. But by the time the book came
working in diverse fields ranging from
1960s is the most important legend in
out, the field was already gone. There
control theory and signal processing to
neural-net culture. The testimony in
y of
was just about nobody doing it.’
neurobiology and psychology. They are
Talking Nets suggests a more compli, the stud
ntly
one
So what really happened? It seems
being vigorously applied to an equally
cated story, however. It is true that
is only
Until rece
zation
esses.
clear that people such as Widrow had
broad range of problems ranging from
Minsky and Papert come off badly in
e proc
categori
erstood
become discouraged because they
understanding basic brain mechanisms
this telling of the tale (of course, it isn’t
cognitiv
on. But
be und
n, for
er-level
gorizati
knew that multilayer nets were needed
cannot
to forecasting the fluctuations in the
their side that is being told). The MIT
isolatio
all high
cepts
of cate
ct
but didn’t know how to train them. His
study
bond market. This book recapitulates
people seem to have been bothered by
tion, in
that con
s underlie
to affe
r func
argue
been the
testimony on this point is poignant:
much of the convoluted history of
publicity over neural-network research
Concept
interact
any othe
ral. We
largely
which
on, or
s has
neural-network research through the
being conducted elsewhere (Widrow:
ng seve
ation
tions
gorizati
concept
in isol
tion amo
‘We would have given our eye
testimony of people who figured cen‘You know, we had a lot of controversy
tiple func
y of cate
function
ual func
e mul
, but
the stud
teeth to come up with somesingle
trally in its development. It is a remarkin the early days. It was due to publicity
s serv
concept
function
ying a
through
concept
each
t,
stud
thing like Backprop…Backprop
tly
able
story,
replete
with
drama,
that
[Frank]
Rosenblatt
had
in
the
to
For
Firs
nd,
.
ar
Seco
tions.
sufficien
reasons
to me is almost miraculous.
particul
tragedy, hubris, irony, humor, bitter innews media and publicity that I had…I
essing.
tiple func
text
ortant
that are
The first exposure I had to
and proc
tellectual warfare, and a couple of
found that this kind of publicity infurito mul
the con
esses
two imp
cture
ied in
e proc
common
Backprop was around 1985 at
corpses. It is told in the words of a brilates colleagues…’). One has to imagine
ual stru
be stud
cognitiv
that are
concept
a meeting at Snowbird, Utah…
instead
to see
liant and eccentric collection of people,
what transpired the day that
esses
es one
s should
ry of proc
Someone gave a paper in the
including several certifiable geniuses
Rosenblatt, the psychologist from
encourag
concept
discove
first morning session and during
and a couple who are merely certifiCornell, came down to MIT to tell an
ges the
gest that
, we sug
discoura
the question period…someone
s.
able, as Groucho would have said. (The
audience that included Minsky,
ons
ns
tion
elatio
got up and said, “You know,
two reas
interviewees comprise Bernard Widrow,
Shannon and McCulloch the news
ated func
ss interr
these
n discu
interrel
something like that was done
Carver Mead, Stephen Grossberg,
about perceptrons. (Cowan: ‘It was a
em of
ing sectio
syst
follow
a
by Widrow back in the early
Michael Arbib, James Anderson, David
terrible lecture. McCulloch didn’t say
of
represenin the
life, and
‘60s.” They began to have this
ions.
Rumelhart, Geoff Hinton, Terry
anything. Shannon said, ‘It’s worth
conceptual an entity
her
g these funct s assume that
How conbig discussion about what
whet
Sejnowski
and
nine
others.)
The
aclooking
at’…
But
by
and
large
it
was
ht.
amon
as
ifying
rcher
thoug
to
al
for ident
Widrow did and Widrow didreferred
counts aren’t all consistent with each
clear that the perceptron wasn’t doing
blocks of therefore, centr
Most resea
but
building
procedures a process often
are
is
n’t do, and I’m just sitting
other and can’t all be equally true.
the things that Frank claimed it could
are the
in itself,
s include
updated
concepts
ory,
end
on
and
oncepts
tation
categ
enthere, listening to all this
d
used,
Yet in reading them, one gets a vivid
do.’) Rosenblatt had the even greater
is not an
literature
ber of a
g novel
formed,
ce. The
recent edite .
orization
is a mem
stuff…I was like a dead man. I
categorizin previous
sense of where people came from,
misfortune to die soon thereafter in a
cepts are
4–7 for
itive scien
tion. Categ ect old to new:
nt
review
in cogn
and Refs
oriza
s
releva
was a man who’d died, who
short
what
they
thought
they
were
doing,
boating
accident.
ions
a
categ
l
conn
in
quest
to bring
for review
the nove
serves to
was sitting up on a cloud
and how their ideas developed. It’s also
The ironies here are staggering.
summarize namely, the idea
Refs 1–3
itive system understanding
rather it
ssible to
vast (see
brush’
issue –
e of
s the cogn
somewhere, looking down on
affect
a lot of fun.
Minsky’s reaction to the publicity over
to
‘tooth
a
and impo
single
servic
allow
ct
a
as
es)
the
on
tities
intera
in
volum
the Earth, watching what hapAt one level, the history of neuralperceptrons has to be considered in
ions. A
ual shape
we focus
to bear
mulions which
reason,
their funct
knowledge gnizing some unus
epts serve
ple funct
pened after he died.’ (p. 61)
network research can be read as a
light of his subsequent willingness to
For this
category
parts and
have multi processing. Conc
are not
of
its
Reco
.
pts
d
ions
long-running soap opera with a cast of
serve the mass media as a kind of allledge
rstan
entity
funct
and
For
that conce
and
to unde
nce: know t behavior.
see, these
structure
People also had to wait for comcharacters that is a little strange even
purpose, techno-egghead commentact with
allows one ion is infere
we will
abou
conceptual
cians
and, as
r, they intera interactions
puter power to catch up with the ideas,
ctions
physi
for a group of academics. The aptor on the issues of the day (e.g. ‘The
funct
ions,
rathe
d
predi
relate
orts
ories allow effective.
tiple funct of one another;
a point that Arbib emphasizes. Widrow
proach originated with some papers by
future of money’, Discover, 1998; ‘Is
that these
tion,
ip supp
t
be
ostic categ
believe
categoriza
membersh
and Rosenblatt were experimenting with
Turing (on biological dynamic systems),
the body obsolete?, Whole Earth
ents will
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other. We gy of studying
medi
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and
physical networks created out of elecWiener’s ‘cybernetics’, and the crucial
Review, 1989). And if the perceptron
example,
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ct what
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articles by McCulloch and Pitts treating
was not able to do all the things that
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which in turn greatly influenced von
compare to the years of relentless hype
he is walki his face bellowcategorize
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functions
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about artificial intelligence?
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Interestingly, opinions vary. Robert
bare-chest
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on,
turn to recen interact with one
rated
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Hecht-Nielsen thinks that Minsky and
to a footb
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Then, we
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of how
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who hung around the university but
Papert’s book1 Perceptrons mattered
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functions
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ushion
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like Berkeley, Stanford, and CalTech.
how
wisdom that some MIT professors have
might create beer, binoculars,
rage the
Finally,
of old,
Department
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functions.
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game (e.g.
is,
approach
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Psychology,
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radio).
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Trends in Cognitive Sciences – Vol. 3, No. 3, March 1999
entities
Thus, encou an electric tooth
Road,
of conce
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but new
Sheridan
learning.
(e.g.
,
Functions
very diffic
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support
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ions. The
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Evanston,
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Books
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Talking Nets: An Oral History
of Neural Networks
Review
Studen
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and Eli
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A conce
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ory with
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of cogni
learning
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a variety
categoriza are used
as how
result in
tion. The
to meet
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ions, such
representa
brush) can
concepts)
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function
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toward
conceptual a number of quest
tions (or
studied
versus old,
into the
commonly h mental representa has been a trend
that inmation
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inference,
also assoc t to give new infor Moreover, given
ntly, there
cess by whic
there
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functions, concepts are
on.
categories
fy entiti
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conceptual
apping
to classi
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s
shall see,
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boundarie
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set
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informatio
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combinatio
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stances
her new
ions intera
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PII: S13641999
conceptual In this section
in every
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reserved.
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.
between
are used
e. All rights
, No.
ol. 3
each other which concepts
r Scienc
s – V
Elsevie
influence
in
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r © 1999
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front matte
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a numb
/$ – see
613/99
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ds in
429
Trends in Cognitive Sciences – Vol. 3, No. 11,
November 1999