This study sounds like a reminder that many things in life may be a matter of neither too much nor too little.
JPG CHICAGO (Reuters) - Forget what mom said about keeping your hands in your lap while talking. Gesturing while speaking appears to free up the brain to perform other tasks, such as remembering a list, scientists report. In experiments with nearly 100 adults and children, psychologists at the University of Chicago, Illinois, found that gesturing while explaining a math problem improved the recall of a previously memorized list of numbers or letters. To draw the conclusion, memory test results were compared when study participants were permitted to gesture and when they were told to keep their hands still. The value of gesturing to convey meaning to the listener has been shown in previous research, but it also may help the conveyor of the information, Susan Goldin-Meadow and colleagues report in the journal Psychological Science. They note that even blind people gesture with their hands when talking to blind listeners, suggesting another purpose to all the hand waving. "Producing gestures can actually lighten a speaker's burden," the researchers write. They suggest that by tapping into a part of the brain dealing with visual and spatial subjects, gesturing while talking may make demands on additional memory stores and allow the speaker to remember more. "Whatever the mechanism," the authors note, "our findings suggest that gesturing can help to free up cognitive resources that can then be used elsewhere. Traditional injunctions against gesturing while speaking may, in the end, be ill-advised." -- --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
