Over de Interpretatie van Representationele Gebaren

The purpose of this research was to establish an effect of the communicational environment on the interpretation of representational gestures. In particular, it was tested whether having a more concrete or abstract mindset influences the way gestures are interpreted. As in Krahmer & Stapel (to appear), the mindset of 46 participants was manipulated by letting them solve word puzzles with only abstract or concrete concepts. Participants then interpreted gestures shown on film by choosing between a given concrete and abstract interpretation. Results show that despite an overall abstract bias, there was a difference between the conditions in interpreting the gestures in the hypothesized direction. Furthermore, the control condition that was not put in a specific mindset scored an average in-between these two conditions. Since this effect was only significant at the beginning, it is concluded that there is a brief but generalisable environmental effect on the interpretation of representational gestures.