Members

Professor Geoffrey Beattie

Geoff is interested in further developing the model of human communication which maintains that speech and iconic gestures together are crucial to semantic communication in all face-to-face interaction. He is currently considering some of the practical consequences of this model, including its application to advertising, the detection of deception, and political discourse.

For more detail on Geoff’s work please see www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/GeoffBeattie

Dr Heather Shovelton

The focus of Heather’s work is to understand how the spontaneous movements of the human hand are integrated with speech in the communication of meaning in everyday talk. Research has shown that semantic messages are split between the two modalities of gesture and speech and she is interested in how listeners combine information from these two radically different modalities to understand a message. Heather’s research also focuses on the practical applications of the gesture-speech relationship, including possible implications for advertising.

For more detail on Heather’s work please see www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/40161

Dr Judith Holler

Judith’s work focuses on gesture in interpersonal communication. She is particularly interested in how speakers use speech and gesture to communicate meaning, the functions of gestures in dialogue (both semantic and pragmatic) and how social and interactional processes influence gesture use. Judith is currently leading a research project funded by the ESRC exploring gesture in the context of collaborative and cooperative language use.

For more detail on Judith’s work please see http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/JudithHoller

Dr Susan Speer

Sue uses conversation analysis (CA) and CA-inspired studies of gesture to identify and describe the routine practices through which co-present persons coordinate their everyday social lives. Her most recent work on psychiatrist-patient interactions in the gender identity clinic aims to develop and extend what we know about the social construction of gender in institutional contexts. This work shows that gender gets done as a thoroughly embodied and co-constructed practice in interaction, and that an analysis of the interrelation of the talk and gestures of both speakers and hearers is absolutely fundamental to our understanding of how members’ ‘do’, and ‘display’ gender in interaction, and pass as male or female.

For more detail on Sue’s work please see http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/121358

Dr Tanya Behne

Tanya’s main research interest is young children’s social cognitive development, in particular their ability to understand and learn from others’ intentional actions and their ability to co-operate and communicate with others. Regarding the development of intentional gestural communication, her current research projects focus on young children's comprehension and production of deictic and iconic gestures.

For more detail on Tanya’s work please see www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/150898

Dr Simone Pika

Simone studies the social communication of human and non-human primates with a special focus on underlying processes of social cognition and the evolutionary roots of language. Current projects centre on the social communication of bonobos (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in captive settings (Apenheul Zoo, the Netherlands, Chester Zoo, UK) and in the wild (Salonga National Park, DRC; Kibale National Park and Budongo Forest Reserve, Uganda). Her previous work has focused on the acquisition and use of conventional gestures in humans, the use of gestures in bilinguals in a narrative context, as well as the learning and use of gestural signalling in great apes.

For more detail on Simone’s work, please see http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/SimonePika

Doron Cohen, PhD Student

Doron is researching the relationship between spoken language and iconic gestures. He is particularly interested in how the communicative value of gesture may diminish when the unit of analysis moves away from decontexualised isolated clauses to encompass a speaker’s wider discourse. He is also interested in the way in which different semantic features are included in or omitted from a speaker’s narrative as a function of their overall salience to the narrative.

Simon Child, PhD Student

My research focuses on the development of symbolic capacities in the domains of pretend play, gestural communication and language in children. My project aims to longitudinally trace development between the ages of 3 and 5, in order to investigate the potential relations between these symbolic skills and how they change across development. Additional research aims to explore whether a child’s representative gestures are learned by making individual inferences about the properties of an object or by imitation of actions from a more capable peer.

Collaborators

Prof. Thomas Bugnyar, University of Vienna (Austria)

Dr Evan Kidd, University of Manchester & LaTrobe University (Australia)

Dr Donna Lloyd, University of Manchester (UK)

Prof. John Mitani, University of Michigan (USA)

Prof. Elena Nicoladis, University of Alberta (Canada)

Dr Anna Theakston, University of Manchester (UK)

Prof. David Watts, University of Yale (USA)

Dr Alison Wearden, University of Manchester (UK)

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Seminars & Workshops

Seminar series “Current Developments in Gesture Research”
(Funded by the British Psychological Society; Award Holders: Dr. Karen Pine (PI), Prof. Geoffrey Beattie, Dr. Judith Holler)

1st Seminar: 30th June 2006, University of Hertfordshire http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/news.html

2nd Seminar: 19th January 2007, The University of Manchester. Details here

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Publications on gesture

Arbib, M., Liebal, K. & Pika, S. (in press). Primate vocalization, gesture, and the evolution of human language. Current Anthropology.
Beattie, G., & Shovelton, H. (2009). An exploration of the other side of semantic communication. How the spontaneous movements of the human hand add crucial meaning to narrative. Semiotica, 176.
Beattie, G., & Shovelton, H. (2007). The role of imagistic gesture in semantic communication and its theoretical and practical implication. In: S. Duncan, J. Cassell, & E. Levy (eds.), Gesture and the Dynamic Dimension of Language: Essays in Honour of David McNeill, pp. 221-241. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Beattie, G. & Shovelton, H. (2006). A critical appraisal of the relationship between speech and gesture and its implications for the treatment of aphasia. Advances in Speech-Language Pathology, 8, 134-139.
Beattie, G. & Shovelton, H. (2006). When size really matters: how a single semantic feature is represented in the speech and gesture modalities. Gesture, 6, 63-84.
Beattie, G., & Shovelton, H. (2005). Why the spontaneous images created by the hands during talk can help make TV advertisements more effective. British Journal of Psychology, 96, 21-37.
Beattie, G. (2003). Visible Thought: the New Psychology of Body Language. London: Routledge.
Beattie, G., & Shovelton, H. (2002). Lexical access in talk: A critical consideration of transitional probability and word frequency as possible determinants of pauses in spontaneous speech. Semiotica, 141, 49-71.
Beattie, G., & Shovelton, H. (2002). What properties of talk are associated with the generation of spontaneous iconic hand gestures?Journal of Language & Social Psychology, 41, 403-417.
Beattie, G., & Shovelton, H. (2002). An experimental investigation of some properties of individual iconic gestures that mediate their communicative power. British Journal of Psychology, 93, 179-192.
Beattie, G., & Shovelton, H. (2001). An experimental investigation of the role of different types of iconic gesture in communication: a semantic feature approach. Gesture, 1, 129-149.
Beattie, G., & Shovelton, H. (1999b). Mapping the range of information contained in the iconic hand gestures that accompany spontaneous speech. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 18, 438-462.
Beattie, G., & Shovelton, H. (1999a). Do iconic hand gestures really contribute anything to the semantic information conveyed by speech? An experimental investigation. Semiotica, 123, 1-30.
Beattie, G., & Coughlan, J. (1999). An experimental investigation of the role of iconic gestures in lexical access using the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. British Journal of Psychology, 90, 35-56.
Beattie, G. and Coughlan, J. (1998). Do iconic gestures have a functional role in lexical access? An experimental study of the effects of repeating a verbal message on gesture production. Semiotica, 119, 221-249.
Beattie, G., & Aboudan, R. (1994). Gestures, pauses and speech: an experimental investigation of the effects of changing social context on their precise temporal relationships. Semiotica, 99, 239-272.
Behne, T., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2005). One-year-olds comprehend the communicative intentions behind gestures in a hiding game. Developmental Science, 8, 492-499.
Butterworth, B. & Beattie, G. (1978). Gesture and silence as indicators of planning in speech. In R. N. Campbell and P. T. Smith (eds.), Recent Advances in the Psychology of Language: Formal and Experimental Approaches, pp.347-360. New York: Plenum Press.
Gräfenhain, M., Behne, T., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2006). One-year-olds’ understanding of nonverbally expressed communicative intentions directed to a third person. Poster presented at ICIS, Kyoto, Japan.
Holler, J., Shovelton, H., & Beattie, G. (2009). Do iconic gestures really contribute to the semantic information communicated in face-to-face interaction? Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 33, 73-88.
Holler, J. & Wikin, K. (2009). Communicating common ground: how mutually shared knowledge influences gesture and speech in a narrative task. Language & Cognitive Processes, 24, 267-289.
Holler, J., & Stevens, R. (2007). An experimental investigation into the effect of common ground on how speakers use gesture and speech to represent size information in referential communication. Journal of Language & Social Psychology, 26, 4-27.
Holler, J., & Beattie, G. (2007). Gesture use in social interaction: how speakers’ gestures can reflect listeners’ thinking. Lorenza Mondada (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2nd Conference of the International Society of Gesture Studies, Lyon, France, 15-18 June 2005.
Holler, J., & Stevens, R. (2006). How speakers represent size information in referential communication for knowing and unknowing recipients. David Schlangen & Raquel Fernandez (Eds.), Brandial ’06 Proceedings of the 10th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue, Potsdam, Germany, September 11-13 2006.
Holler, J., & Beattie, G. (2004). The interaction of iconic gesture and speech. In: A. Camurri and G. Volpe (eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 5th International Gesture Workshop, Genova, Italy, April 15-17, 2003; Selected Revised Papers. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
Holler, J., & Beattie, G. (2003b). Pragmatic aspects of representational gestures: Do speakers use them to clarify verbal ambiguity for the listener? Gesture, 3, 127-154.
Holler, J., & Beattie, G. (2003a). How iconic gestures and speech interact in the representation of meaning: are both aspects really integral to the process? Semiotica, 146, 81-116.
Holler, J., & Beattie, G. (2002). A micro-analytic investigation of how iconic gestures and speech represent core semantic features in talk. Semiotica, 142, 31-69.
Kidd, E. & Holler, J. (in press). Children's use of gesture to resolve lexical ambiguity. Developmental Science.
Liebal, K., Behne, T., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2006). Infants use ‘Common Ground’ to Interpret Others’ Communicative Intentions. Poster presented at ICIS, Kyoto, Japan.
Liebal, K., C. Müller, & S. Pika (2005). Gestural communication in nonhuman and human primates. Vol. 5. Gesture Special issue. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Liebal, K., S. Pika, J. Call, & M. Tomasello (2004). Great ape communicators move in front of recipients before producing visual gestures. Interaction studies, 5, 199-219.
Liebal, K., S. Pika, & M. Tomasello (2006). Gestural communication of orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus). Gesture, 6, 1-38.
Liebal, K., S. Pika, & M. Tomasello (2004). Social communication in siamangs (Symphalangus Syndactulus): Use of gestures and facial expression. Primates, 45, 41-57.
Nicoladis, E., S. Pika, H. Yin, & P. Marentette (2007). Gesture use in story recall by Chinese-English bilinguals. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 719-733.
Pika, S. (in press). Our grooming cousins: Providing the link to declarative signalling?
Pika, S., Nicoladis, M. & Marentette, P. F. (2009). How to order a beer? Cultural differences in the use of conventional gestures for numerals. Journal for Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40, 70-80.
Pika, S. (2008b). What is the nature of the gestural communication of great apes? In: The Shared Mind (Ed. by Zlatev, J., Racine, T., Sinha, C. & Itkonen, E.), pp. 165-186. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Pika, S. (2008a). Gestures of apes and pre-linguistic human children: Similar or different? First Language, 28, 116-140.
Pika, S. (2007b). The gestural communication of gorillas. In: M. Tomasello and J. Call (eds.), The Gestural Communication of Monkeys and Apes, pp. 99-130. Mahwah, New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Pika, S. & Zuberbühler, K. (2007). Social games between bonobos and humans: Evidence for shared intentionality? American Journal of Primatology, 70, 207-210.
Pika, S. (2007a). The gestural communication of bonobos. In: M. Tomasello and J. Call (eds.), The Gestural Communication of Monkeys and Apes. Mahwah, New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Pika, S., M. Nicoladis, & P. F. Marentette (2006). A cross-cultural study on the use of gestures: Evidence for cross-linguistic transfer? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 319-327
Pika, S., & J. C. Mitani (2006). Referential gesturing in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Current Biology, 16,191-192.
Pika, S., & K. Liebal (2006). Differences and similarities between the natural gestural communication of the great apes and human children, in The evolution of language, Proceedings of the 6th International Conference (Evolang6). Edited by A. Cangelosi, A. D. M. Smith, and K. Smith, pp. 267-274. London: World Scientific Publishing.
Pika, S. (2005). Gestural communication in subadult bonobos (Pan paniscus): Gestural repertoire and use. American Journal of Primatology, 65, 39-51.
Pika, S., K. Liebal, J. Call, & M. Tomasello (2005). The gestural communication of apes. Gesture, 5, 41-56.
Pika, S., K. Liebal, & M. Tomasello (2003). Gestural communication in young gorillas (Gorilla gorilla): Gestural repertoire, learning and use. American Journal of Primatology, 60, 95-111.
Speer, S. A. & Green, R. (2007) On passing: The interactional organization of appearance attributions in the psychiatric assessment of transsexual patients. In V. Clarke & E. Peel (eds.) Out in Psychology: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer Perspectives. pp. 335-368. Chichester: Wiley.
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Contact Details

The Manchester Gesture Centre c/o J. Holler
Coupland Building 1
The University of Manchester
M13 9PL

Email: mgc@manchester.ac.uk

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the ESRC, the British Academy, the Royal Society, Tesco and the BPS for contributing to the funding of our research projects, research seminars/workshops and PhD students. We would also like to thank the participants who volunteer to take part in our research, and the University of Manchester for providing us with the laboratory facilities. We would also like to thank the Denver Zoo for permission to use their Gorilla handprint image in our logo.

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