Mind in motion: The Gesture as Simulated Action framework

The Gesture as Simulated Action (GSA) framework is proposed as a means of uniting theories of gesture production within the broad framework of embodied cognition. The central claim of the GSA framework is that speakers produce more representational gestures when describing ideas that are based on strong action simulations than when describing ideas that are based on weaker action simulations. This claim was supported in three separate studies. Study 1 found that speakers gestured more when they described patterns they had physically made than when they described patterns they had only viewed. Study 2 found that speakers were more likely to gesture about the orientation of a shape when they imagined that shape as being rotated than when they imagined it as stationary. Study 3 found that speakers gestured more when they described nouns that have strong associations with particular actions than when they described nouns without strong action associations. Taken together, these studies support the central claim of the GSA framework by suggesting that speakers gesture when they express thoughts that involve strong simulations of actions.;Two other claims made by the GSA framework were also tested in Study 3. First, the framework claims that social factors influence representational gesture production by changing speakers' resistance to allowing simulated action to be expressed as gestures. Study 3 found that speakers gestured less when describing words to an audience who could not see their gestures than when describing words to an audience who could see their gestures. Second, the GSA framework claims that beat gestures reflect coordinated activity between the oral and manual systems, and that there should be a tradeoff between representational and beat gestures as the strength of simulated action increases. Supporting this, Study 3 found that as the strength of simulated action increased, the proportion of gestures produced as beats decreased.