Individual differences in representational gesture production are associated with cognitive and empathy skills.

Substantial individual variation exists in the frequency of gestures produced while speaking. This study investigated the associations between cognitive abilities, empathy levels, and personality traits with the frequency of representational gestures. A cartoon narration task and a social dilemma solving task were used to elicit gestures.

Subliminal perception of others' physical pain induces personal distress rather than empathic concern.

Background: What is our immediate reaction when we witness someone experiencing pain? The empathy-altruism hypothesis predicts that observers would display empathy and a tendency to approach the person in pain. Alternatively, the threat value of pain hypothesis (TVPH) argues that others' pain serves as a signal of threat and should induce observers' avoidance response.

Methods: To examine these two hypotheses, three experiments were conducted.

Encoding and decoding hidden meanings in face-to-face communication: Understanding the role of verbal and nonverbal behaviors in indirect replies.

In everyday conversation, we often use indirect replies to save face of our interlocutor (e.g., "Your paper does have room for improvement").

Intrinsic Cerebro-Cerebellar Functional Connectivity Reveals the Function of Cerebellum VI in Reading-Related Skills.

The engagement of the cerebellum VI in reading was reported in both typically developing and dyslexic readers. However, it is still not clear how the cerebellum VI contributes to reading. Here we have examined the correlation of intrinsic cerebro-cerebellar functional connectivity with two critical reading-related skills-phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatized naming (RAN)-with fMRI technology.

Graph theoretical analysis of functional network for comprehension of sign language.

Signed languages are natural human languages using the visual-motor modality. Previous neuroimaging studies based on univariate activation analysis show that a widely overlapped cortical network is recruited regardless whether the sign language is comprehended (for signers) or not (for non-signers). Here we move beyond previous studies by examining whether the functional connectivity profiles and the underlying organizational structure of the overlapped neural network may differ between signers and non-signers when watching sign language.

How do gestures influence thinking and speaking? The gesture-for-conceptualization hypothesis.

People spontaneously produce gestures during speaking and thinking. The authors focus here on gestures that depict or indicate information related to the contents of concurrent speech or thought (i.e.

Beat that Word: How Listeners Integrate Beat Gesture and Focus in Multimodal Speech Discourse.

Communication is facilitated when listeners allocate their attention to important information (focus) in the message, a process called "information structure." Linguistic cues like the preceding context and pitch accent help listeners to identify focused information. In multimodal communication, relevant information can be emphasized by nonverbal cues like beat gestures, which represent rhythmic nonmeaningful hand movements.

Electrophysiological and Kinematic Correlates of Communicative Intent in the Planning and Production of Pointing Gestures and Speech.

In everyday human communication, we often express our communicative intentions by manually pointing out referents in the material world around us to an addressee, often in tight synchronization with referential speech. This study investigated whether and how the kinematic form of index finger pointing gestures is shaped by the gesturer's communicative intentions and how this is modulated by the presence of concurrently produced speech. Furthermore, we explored the neural mechanisms underpinning the planning of communicative pointing gestures and speech.

Co-thought and co-speech gestures are generated by the same action generation process.

People spontaneously gesture when they speak (co-speech gestures) and when they solve problems silently (co-thought gestures). In this study, we first explored the relationship between these 2 types of gestures and found that individuals who produced co-thought gestures more frequently also produced co-speech gestures more frequently (Experiments 1 and 2). This suggests that the 2 types of gestures are generated from the same process.

Synchronization of speech and gesture: evidence for interaction in action.

Language and action systems are highly interlinked. A critical piece of evidence is that speech and its accompanying gestures are tightly synchronized. Five experiments were conducted to test 2 hypotheses about the synchronization of speech and gesture.

The role of beat gesture and pitch accent in semantic processing: an ERP study.

The present study investigated whether and how beat gesture (small baton-like hand movements used to emphasize information in speech) influences semantic processing as well as its interaction with pitch accent during speech comprehension. Event-related potentials were recorded as participants watched videos of a person gesturing and speaking simultaneously. The critical words in the spoken sentences were accompanied by a beat gesture, a control hand movement, or no hand movement, and were expressed either with or without pitch accent.

Individual differences in frequency and saliency of speech-accompanying gestures: the role of cognitive abilities and empathy.

The present study concerns individual differences in gesture production. We used correlational and multiple regression analyses to examine the relationship between individuals' cognitive abilities and empathy levels and their gesture frequency and saliency. We chose predictor variables according to experimental evidence of the functions of gesture in speech production and communication.

The nature of gestures' beneficial role in spatial problem solving.

Co-thought gestures are hand movements produced in silent, noncommunicative, problem-solving situations. In the study, we investigated whether and how such gestures enhance performance in spatial visualization tasks such as a mental rotation task and a paper folding task. We found that participants gestured more often when they had difficulties solving mental rotation problems (Experiment 1).

Spontaneous gestures during mental rotation tasks: insights into the microdevelopment of the motor strategy.

This study investigated the motor strategy involved in mental rotation tasks by examining 2 types of spontaneous gestures (hand-object interaction gestures, representing the agentive hand action on an object, vs. object-movement gestures, representing the movement of an object by itself) and different types of verbal descriptions of rotation. Hand-object interaction gestures were produced earlier than object-movement gestures, the rate of both types of gestures decreased, and gestures became more distant from the stimulus object over trials (Experiments 1 and 3).