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Part of
Why Gesture?: How the hands function in speaking, thinking and communicating
Edited by Ruth Breckinridge Church, Martha W. Alibali and Spencer D. Kelly
[Gesture Studies 7] 2017
► pp. 197–212

Chapter 9
Gesture in socio-moral reasoning

| Erikson Institute

The purpose of this chapter will be to expand our understanding of the effects that gestures have on learning by exploring their impact on the acquisition of non-spatial concepts. This is crucial to our understanding of how exactly gestures help learners – a premise at the very heart of this book. It could be the case that gesture simply aids in the learning of spatial information. In and of itself, this is a remarkable contribution. Alternatively, it could be that gesture actually conveys a general cognitive benefit by aiding in the learning of both spatial and non-spatial information, making gesture a potent tool for understanding the world around us. Using extant literature in conjunction with experimental findings, I will make a case for the latter.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Background
    • The contribution of iconic gesture to spatial learning
    • The contribution of metaphoric gesture to spatial learning
    • The underlying mechanism of gesture’s contribution to spatial learning
    • Gesture in non-spatial learning contexts
  • Gesture and learning in a non-spatial domain: Moral reasoning
  • Conclusions
  • References
Published online: 26 April 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/gs.7.10bea
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