Professor Susan Goldin-Meadow: How our hands help us think

When people talk, they gesture.  We now know that these gestures are  associated with learning.  They can index moments of cognitive instability and reflect thoughts not yet found in speech.  What I hope to do in this talk is raise the possibility that gesture might do more than just reflect learning––it might be involved in the learning process itself.  I consider two non-mutually exclusive possibilities:  the gestures that we see others produce might be able to change our thoughts; and the gestures that we ourselves produce might be able to change our thoughts. Finally, I explore the mechanisms responsible for gesture's effect on learning––how gesture works to change our minds.