• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.123-143
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• 2011

At what point in the process of speech production are gestures involved? According to the Lexical Retrieval Hypothesis, gestures are involved in the lexicalization in the formulating stage. According to the Information Packaging Hypothesis, gestures are involved in the conceptual planning of massages in the conceptualizing stage. We investigated these hypotheses, using the game situation in a TV program that induced the players to involve in both lexicalization and conceptualization simultaneously. The transcription of the verbal utterances was augmented with all arm and hand gestures produced by the players. Coverbal gestures were classified into two types of gestures: lexical gestures and motor gestures. As a result, concrete words elicited lexical gestures significantly more frequently than abstract words, and abstract words elicited motor gestures significantly more frequently than concrete words. The difficulty of conceptualization in concrete words was significantly correlated with the amount of lexical gestures. However, the amount of words and the word frequency were not correlated with the amount of both gestures. This result supports the Information Packaging Hypothesis. Most of all, the importance of motor gestures was inferred from the result that abstract words elicited motor gestures more frequently rather than concrete words. Motor gestures, which have been considered as unrelated to verbal production, were excluded from analysis in many gestural studies. This study revealed motor gestures seemed to be connected to the abstract conceptualization.