Dijkstra, Olena (2025) The Relationship Between Gesture Diversity and Performance in a Balance Task. Master thesis, Psychology.
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Abstract
Gestures are hand or body movements that are related to thinking and speaking. Apart from gesture’s function in communication, gestures can also promote cognitive development. This study extends previous research on the role of gestures in cognition by examining the relationship between gesture diversity and performance in a balance task. I hypothesized that gesture diversity was positively related to performance. A between-subjects experiment was conducted with 20 children aged 5 to 7 years, who were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: hands-on (task manipulations and hand gestures), hands-off (no task manipulations nor hand gestures), or gestures only (no task manipulations). Tasks were recorded and each hand movement was coded as a gesture type. To measure performance, I assigned points to each trial depending on how many chances the children needed to correctly solve the balance problems. I calculated gesture diversity using Shannon entropy. After performing a multilevel analysis, the results showed no significant relation between gesture diversity and task performance. However, an exploratory analysis showed that in the gestures only condition gesture diversity was negatively related to task performance. Limitations of this study are a small sample size, missing trials, and the interaction with the children possibly influenced their answers. The findings suggest that gesture diversity may influence cognitive development, but further research is needed to examine the specific conditions under which this effect occurs.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Master) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Jonge-Hoekstra, L. de |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | Ontwikkelingspsychologie (O) [Master Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 30 May 2025 14:09 |
| Last Modified: | 30 May 2025 14:09 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/4910 |
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