That is, information distributed into speech and gesture within each speech-gesture unit was complementary rather than parallel. This difference in the distribution of manner and path information in concurrent speech and gesture suggests that languages put different demands on the Interface Mechanism. It is plausible that the Japanese and Turkish languages put a bigger cognitive load on the Interface Mechanism than English. Turkish and Japanese speakers have to decompose two aspects of a motion event, namely manner and path, and hold them in working memory until they are expressed in two separate units in speech formulation. More frequent informational mismatch in concurrent speech and gesture in Turkish and Japanese suggests that the extra load may lead to the 'misfiring' of gestures.
Evidence comes from naturalistic route directions recorded in Tokyo.
Informants were recruited on the street in their familiar environment. They gave directions to two target locations, which were about 400 m away. This suggests the following course of events. The role of gesture in micro-conceptualization for speaking Alibal i, Kit a, and Young investigated the function of gestures in the speech production process. The first hypothesis states that gesturing helps linguistic formulation processes of speaking.