Wakefield Elizabeth M, Congdon Eliza L, Novack Miriam A, Goldin-Meadow Susan, James Karin H
Department of Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
Department of Psychology, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, USA.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2019 Oct;81(7):2343-2353. doi: 10.3758/s13414-019-01755-y.
Producing gesture can be a powerful tool for facilitating learning. This effect has been replicated across a variety of academic domains, including algebra, chemistry, geometry, and word learning. Yet the mechanisms underlying the effect are poorly understood. Here we address this gap using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We examine the neural correlates underlying how children solve mathematical equivalence problems learned with the help of either a speech + gesture strategy, or a speech-alone strategy. Children who learned through a speech + gesture were more likely to recruit motor regions when subsequently solving problems during a scan than children who learned through speech alone. This suggests that gesture promotes learning, at least in part, because it is a type of action. In an exploratory analysis, we also found that children who learned through speech + gesture showed subthreshold activation in regions outside the typical action-learning network, corroborating behavioral findings suggesting that the mechanisms supporting learning through gesture and action are not identical. This study is one of the first to explore the neural mechanisms of learning through gesture.
产生手势可能是促进学习的有力工具。这种效应已在包括代数、化学、几何和单词学习在内的各种学术领域得到复制。然而，这种效应背后的机制却知之甚少。在这里，我们使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来填补这一空白。我们研究了儿童在通过言语+手势策略或仅言语策略学习后解决数学等价问题时的神经关联。与仅通过言语学习的儿童相比，通过言语+手势学习的儿童在扫描过程中随后解决问题时更有可能激活运动区域。这表明手势至少在一定程度上促进了学习，因为它是一种行动类型。在一项探索性分析中，我们还发现，通过言语+手势学习的儿童在典型行动学习网络之外的区域表现出阈下激活，这证实了行为学研究结果，即支持通过手势和行动学习的机制并不相同。这项研究是最早探索通过手势学习的神经机制的研究之一。
