Beat gesture and pitch accent: alike or different?
Another current project examines whether beat gesture facilitates memory for contrastive verbal information, similar to pitch accenting.
I vary whether beat gesture and pitch accenting highlights contrasting words in sentences​:
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Congruently
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Incongruently
The results will clarify whether beat gesture enhances online recognition of contrastive information only or also enhances memory.
Research projects
Neural bases of gesture-speech integration
Currently, I'm using magnetoencepholography (MEG) to investigate brain regions sensitive to gesture-speech timing in typical communication.
Relative to speech, I vary whether gestures are:
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Preceding vs. synchronous vs. following
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Congruous vs. incongruous in meaning
Gesture vs. still images in L2 word learning
This project compares the influences of iconic gesture and still images on the learning of words from a novel second language (L2).
I vary the following factors:
The results will demonstrate whether iconic gestures or still images result in more robust representations of L2 words for adults.
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Iconic gesture vs. images
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Congruent vs. incongruent meanings