Jest ve bellek: Kodlama sırasında jest gözlemlemenin olaysal ve mekansal bellek üzerine etkileri

This study asked (1) the effects of observing different types of gestures at encoding on recall of information (event and path) in both 5-year-old children and adults and (2) whether the effects of types of gestures on children's recall of information depend on any individual differences such as children's working memory capacities, language abilities, their own overall spontaneous gesture frequency, and gesture production during the recall task. First, participants were asked 4 questions (2 daily activity and 2 route description) to measure their spontaneous gesture frequency. Then, all participants listened a story that included different path and event information. Depending on the assigned condition, participants listened the story with accompanying iconic gestures, beat gestures or no gesture. After the encoding, we immediately asked them to tell what happened in the story and then participants were provided a recognition task about the story. Finally, children were given standardized tests to assess individual differences in language and working memory skills. Our results showed that observing iconic gestures at the encoding phase enhanced the recall performance of both adults and children compared to observing beat gestures or no gesture. We could not find any enhancing effects of beat gestures in recalling any type of information. Children who were exposed to iconic gestures at encoding performed better in recalling event information compared to children in either beat or no gesture conditions. However, there was no significant difference among conditions for children's recall of path information. Moreover, children's language abilities, but not working memory capacity, predicted their recall performance. The gesture frequency of children while describing routes predicted their performance in recall of path information. Also, adults who were engaged in gesture production during the recall phase performed better in recollecting information. Our results suggest that relying on semantic content, observing iconic gestures at encoding information facilitates recall for both adults and children.