Carlson Richard A, Avraamides Marios N, Cary Melanie, Strasberg Stephen
Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2007 Jul;33(4):747-56. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.33.4.747.
In 4 experiments, the authors examined the use of the hands in simple arithmetic tasks. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that pointing increases both accuracy and speed in counting arrays of items, whether those items are identical or distinctive. Experiment 3 demonstrated that individuals tend to nod their heads when not allowed to point and that nodding is associated with greater accuracy, suggesting that pointing is functional for reasons other than simply providing additional visual information. Experiment 4 examined changes in speech when adding arrays of digits, depending on whether participants were allowed to use their hands to manipulate the tokens on which the digits were presented. Taken together, the results of these experiments are consistent with recent research suggesting that gesture can serve cognitive functions and that the hands can support the binding of representational elements to their functional roles by providing phase markers for cyclic cognitive processes.
在4项实验中，作者研究了在简单算术任务中手的运用。实验1和实验2表明，无论是对相同还是不同的物品阵列进行计数，用手指点都能提高准确性和速度。实验3表明，当不允许用手指点时，个体往往会点头，而且点头与更高的准确性相关，这表明用手指点的作用不仅仅是提供额外的视觉信息。实验4研究了在添加数字阵列时言语的变化，这取决于参与者是否被允许用手操作呈现数字的代币。综合来看，这些实验的结果与最近的研究一致，即手势可以发挥认知功能，并且手可以通过为循环认知过程提供相位标记来支持表征元素与其功能角色的绑定。
