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From speaker to speaker: Repeated gestures across dyads

Anna Kuhlen Mandana SeyfeddinipurStony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY Stanford University, Stanford, CA

IntroductionSpeakers in dialogue have been shown to converge over timeon the use of specific verbal expressions. This repeated useof expressions has been called lexical entrainment (Brennan& Clark, 1996; Garrod & Anderson, 1987).

Studies suggest that there might be a comparablephenomenon in gesture. Interlocutors show a higher rate ofsimilar gestures when they can see each other (Kimbara,2006). Also, watching mimicked speech and gesture leads tohigher production of mimicked speech and gesture (Parrill &Kimbara, 2006).

However, speakers in previous studies had multipleexposures to features of target gestures or the mimickedgestures were produced when speakers co-narrated an eventwith a friend. The question arises whether speakers take upspecific gesture forms when they only see it once and even ifthey are not conversational partners.

Methods 27 students from the University of California, Riverside

watched one of five video clips in which a speakerdescribes a series of narrative events.

Video clips varied whether speakers used gestures and ifso, what gesture form they used.

Subsequently, participants had to relate those same

events to an addressee.

Participants!gestures were coded for one narrative target

event (praying) by classifying them as one of four differentgesture forms.

The probability of producing a certain gesture form afterseeing it in the stimulus clip was compared to the baseline

probability..

Conclusions

The results suggest that speakers do take up specificformseven if they see it only once from a speaker who is not a

conversational partner.

This type of gestural uptake indicates that gesture isprocessed in a comparable way to how speech isprocessed and that the two build a fully integrated system

in the mind of the speaker.

However, there are many questions this project raises:

Would we find (even) stronger gestural uptake ifparticipants actually were conversational partners?

Current analysis is based on emblematic gestures. Canresults be extended to non- conventionalized gestures?

Is gestural uptake based on a basic priming mechanismor on a high level social reasoning?

- FIGURE(s) RESULTS -

Original gesture Repeated gesture Repeated gesture

Original gestur e Repeated gesture Repeated gesture

Results

Of the 27 praying gestures produced by the retellers 74%

matched the gesture produced in the stimulus (Figure 1).

To test for significance we used a resampling test, in which

10,000 pseudo experiments were generated by randomlypairing each speaker with a video clip other than the one theyoriginally viewed.

The results showed that the 74% matching rate was well

beyond the cut-off value of 37% in the distribution of thepseudo experiments (p< .001).

and the bear he puts his hands together

he puts both paws together

the bear gets down on his knees

pulled his paws together

takes his hand down andhe goes like this and he starts praying

he puts his paws together

kneels and says

takes his paw off of the guyand folds it together

Figure 1.Chance probability of a gestural match between a participant and a randomly chosen

speaker versus observed rate.

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chance rate observed rate

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0325188 and bythe Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship FP6- 509899 -GESTURE to Mandana Seyfeddinipur.

puts his hands together

he puts his two hands togetherand starts to pray

puts his hands together and goes oh lordplease bless the food I am about to receive.

he puts his hands togetherand he!s praying

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Chart 2

References

Brennan, S. E., & Clark, H. H. (1996). Conceptual pacts and lexical choice in conversation. Journal of ExperimentalPsychology, 22 (6), 1482- 1493.

Garrod, S., & Anderson, A. (1987). Saying what you mean in dialog: A study in conceptual and semantic

coordination. Cognition, 27, 181- 218.

Kimbara, I. (2006). Interpersonal influences on gesture production: Evidence for gesture form convergence across

speakers in dyadic interaction (Doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago, 2006). Dissertation Abstracts

International, 67 (2), 397.

Parril, F., Kimbara, I. (2006). Seeing and hearing double: The influence of mimicry in speech and gesture on

observers. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 30, 157- 166.