From speaker to speaker: Repeated gestures across dyads

Anna Kuhlen Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY

Introduction Speakers in dialogue have been shown to converge over time on the use of specic verbal expressions. This repeated use of expressions has been called lexical entrainment (Brennan & Clark, 1996; Garrod & Anderson, 1987). Studies suggest that there might be a comparable phenomenon in gesture. Interlocutors show a higher rate of similar gestures when they can see each other (Kimbara, 2006). Also, watching mimicked speech and gesture leads to higher production of mimicked speech and gesture (Parrill & Kimbara, 2006). However, speakers in previous studies had multiple exposures to features of target gestures or the mimicked gestures were produced when speakers co-narrated an event with a friend. The question arises whether speakers take up specic gesture forms when they only see it once and even if they are not conversational partners.

Mandana Seyfeddinipur Stanford University, Stanford, CA

Methods
27 students from the University of California, Riverside watched one of ve video clips in which a speaker describes a series of narrative events. Video clips varied whether speakers used gestures and if so, what gesture form they used. Subsequently, participants had to relate those same events to an addressee. Participants! gestures were coded for one narrative target event (praying) by classifying them as one of four different gesture forms. The probability of producing a certain gesture form after seeing it in the stimulus clip was compared to the baseline probability. .
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

the bear gets down on his knees

kneels and says

puts his hands together and goes oh lord please bless the food I am about to receive.

Original gesture

Repeated gesture

Repeated gesture

- FIGURE(s) RESULTS -

pulled his paws together

takes his paw off of the guy and folds it together

he puts his hands together and he! s praying

Conclusions
chance rate observed rate

and the bear he puts his hands together

he puts his paws together

puts his hands together

Figure 1. Chance probability of a gestural match between a participant and a randomly chosen speaker versus observed rate.

The results suggest that speakers do take up specic forms even if they see it only once from a speaker who is not a conversational partner. This type of gestural uptake indicates that gesture is processed in a comparable way to how speech is processed and that the two build a fully integrated system in the mind of the speaker.

Results
Original gesture Repeated gesture Repeated gesture

Of the 27 praying gestures produced by the retellers 74% matched the gesture produced in the stimulus (Figure 1).

he puts both paws together

takes his hand down and he goes like this and he starts praying

he puts his two hands together and starts to pray

To test for signicance we used a resampling test, in which 10,000 pseudo experiments were generated by randomly However, there are many questions this project raises: pairing each speaker with a video clip other than the one they Would we nd (even) stronger gestural uptake if originally viewed. participants actually were conversational partners? Current analysis is based on emblematic gestures. Can The results showed that the 74% matching rate was well results be extended to non- conventionalized gestures? beyond the cut-off value of 37% in the distribution of the Is gestural uptake based on a basic priming mechanism pseudo experiments (p< .001). or on a high level social reasoning?
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0325188 and by the Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship FP6- 509899 -GESTURE to Mandana Seyfeddinipur.

References
Brennan, S. E., & Clark, H. H. (1996). Conceptual pacts and lexical choice in conversation. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 22 (6), 1482- 1493. Garrod, S., & Anderson, A. (1987). Saying what you mean in dialog: A study in conceptual and semantic coordination. Cognition, 27, 181- 218. Kimbara, I. (2006). Interpersonal inuences on gesture production: Evidence for gesture form convergence across speakers in dyadic interaction (Doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago, 2006). Dissertation Abstracts International, 67 (2), 397. Parril, F., Kimbara, I. (2006). Seeing and hearing double: The inuence of mimicry in speech and gesture on observers. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 30, 157- 166.

Chart 2