In face-to-face conversation, people convey meaning multimodally, including speech and hand gestures. Previous work showed that comprehenders can use gestures to predict utterance content, but it i...

Higher education figures call on Labour to reverse tax on fees and warn institutions at risk of ‘going under’

Co-speech gestures emerge from the interaction between visuospatial experience and speech formulation, but what happens when visual experience is absent from birth? Blind individuals gesture in ways consistent with their native language, albeit they gesture less frequently. However, nothing is known about whether their gesture form differs from that of sighted individuals. Using computer vision technologies, this study examines whether gesture kinematics are shaped by visuospatial experience. In an auditory motion-description task, we analyzed spontaneous path-only gestures – depicting motion trajectories – produced by 20 congenitally blind, 21 blindfolded, and 21 sighted Turkish speakers. We assessed the gestures’ alignment with actual motion paths, along with duration and size. Blind participants produced gestures that were more precisely aligned with the motion trajectories, as well as larger and longer. These findings show that altered spatial cognition in blindness enhances gesture precision. The study underscores the role of sensorimotor experience in shaping gesture form.

Once a year, Dutch kids, parents and teachers take part in a walking festival, heading out for four nights in a single week to explore their neighbourhoods, exercise and make friends. It’s a tradition...

Understanding whether non-human animals interpret human pointing as cooperative communication remains a central question in comparative cognition. Pointing is a foundational aspect of human…

Abstract. Possible mechanisms behind newborn face preferences are debated, including innate templates, top-heavy bias, focus on eyes, and rapid learning ex

The 72-year-old British actor also had roles in shows including Merlin and Little Britain.

To navigate in and communicate about the continuous world we experience, our minds segment this experience into discrete event units. Yet, languages differ in how they package core aspects of events ...

According to relevance theory, communication relies on speakers’ ability to signal relevant information, which addressees use to infer meaning efficiently. Most research within the relevance theore...

High levels of borrowing and rapid expansion among dangers identified by Higher Education Policy Institute

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According to relevance theory, communication relies on speakers’ ability to signal relevant information, which addressees use to infer meaning efficiently. Most research within the relevance theore...

As part of the multimodal language system, gestures play a vital role for listeners, by capturing attention and providing information. Similarly, disfluencies serve as a cue for the listeners about o...

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Scientists suspected that Europe’s largest bats snack on migrating songbirds when they can, but a stunning newly published observation proves it

We perceive continuous speech as a series of discrete words, despite the lack of clear acoustic boundaries. The superior temporal gyrus (STG) encodes …

The selective revision of beliefs in light of new evidence has been considered one of the hallmarks of human-level rationality. However, tests of this ability in other species are lacking. We examined...