Gesture and Speech Input are Interlocking Pieces: The Development of Children's Jigsaw Puzzle Assembly Ability

Gesture and Speech Input are Interlocking Pieces: The Development of Children’s Jigsaw Puzzle Assembly Ability Christopher J. Young (youngcj@uchicago.edu) Department of Psychology, 5848 S. University Ave Chicago, IL 60637 USA Erica A. Cartmill (cartmill@anthro.ucla.edu) UCLA Department of Anthropology, 341 Haines Hall Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA Susan C. Levine (s-levine@uchicago.edu) Susan Goldin-Meadow (sgm@uchicago.edu) Department of Psychology, 5848 S. University Ave Chicago, IL 60637 USA Abstract Spatial reasoning ability is enhanced by spatial activities and spatial language. Spatial games (e.g., block building, assembling jigsaw puzzles) are often accompanied by spatial language, which, in turn, is often accompanied by co-speech gesture. Here we investigate the effects of spatial language and gesture in the context of puzzle play in improving preschool children’s puzzle assembly ability. We do this by conducting a training study in which we independently manipulate the presence of spatial language and the presence of gesture in the context of four jigsaw puzzle training sessions. Our findings show that providing co-speech gesture along with spatial language is particularly effective in improving children’s ability to put together puzzles on their own. Keywords: spatial cognition; gesture; puzzle play; preschool children; spatial language; STEM Introduction A growing body of research supports a positive relationship between spatial skills and success in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines. This relationship holds across a wide range of ages, from preschoolers to older children and adults (e.g. Gunderson, Ramirez, Levine, and Beilock, 2012; Verdine, Golinkoff, Hirsch-Pasek, Newcombe, Filipowicz, and Change, 2013; Mix & Cheng, 2014; Benbow, Lubinski, Shea, and Eftekhari-Sanjani, 2000; Shea, Lubinski & Benbow, 2001; Wai, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2009). Further, spatial skills mediate the frequently reported relationship between gender and mathematics performance (Casey, Nuttall, & Pezaris, 1997; Casey, Nuttall, Pezaris, and Benbow, 1995). These findings illustrate the role of spatial skills in core academic subjects and highlight the importance of improving those spatial skills beginning early in life. In the current study, we experimentally manipulate the availability of two sources of input – spatial language and co-speech gesture – that are correlated with spatial thinking, (e.g., Levine, Ratliff, Huttenlocher and Cannon, 2012; Pruden, Levine & Huttenlocher, 2011). Sex differences in spatial tasks, such as mental rotation, may, at least partly, reflect differences in how frequently boys and girls are exposed to spatial activities at young ages (Baenninger and Newcombe, 1995). Experience with play activities that rely on spatial skills predicts performance on academic achievement measures, whether the activity is playing with LEGOs, wooden blocks, or jigsaw puzzles (respectively, Wolfgang, Stannard, and Jones, 2003; Casey, Andrews, Schindler, Kersh, Samper, and Copley, 2008; Levine et al. 2012). However few studies have experimentally manipulated the specific types of input provided to children in play in order to evaluate whether they have a causal effect on improving spatial abilities. In this study, we manipulated whether spatial information was provided in both speech and gesture in order to test whether the spatial language and gesture that occur naturally during puzzle play actually lead to, as opposed to merely being correlated with, improvements in children’s spatial thinking and spatial skills. Spatial Language and Gesture Spatial language input predicts performance on spatial activities (Casasola, 2005; Lowenstein & Gentner, 2005; Pruden & Hirsh-Pasek, 2006). Children who do not acquire spatial language lack words for spatial relationships, and this deficiency is correlated with poor performance even on non-verbal spatial tasks (as in deaf Turkish children who could not learn spoken language, had no access to sign language, and had not invented gestures for spatial relations; Gentner, Ozyurek, Gurcanli, and Goldin-Meadow, 2013). The effect of knowing relevant spatial terms on performing a spatial task has also been tested experimentally. Children who produce an appropriate term for a spatial concept like “left” or “above” perform better in search and navigation tasks than children who do not produce these terms (Gentner, 2003; Shusterman, Lee, and Spelke, 2011; Hermer-Vazquez, Moffet, and Munkholm, 2001). The acquisition of spatial terms is influenced by environmental input at home and at school. A longitudinal study of children’s language development shows that parent