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Dr Tilbe Göksun, Koç University, College of Social Sciences and Humanities

Hosts: Professor Sotaro Kita and Dr Suzanne Aussems

Gesture's roles for different populations: What do individual differences in cognitive resources tell us?

The role of language in our cognitive processes has been a hotly debated area in cognitive science research. Language is multimodal. One aspect of multimodality is hand gestures that people produce when they communicate and represent their thoughts. These gestures also reflect and can even change individuals’ thinking processes. In this talk, I will examine the functions of gestures in our cognitive processes and how these roles can vary for different populations. I will present two lines of research from my lab by emphasizing individual differences in cognitive resources: (1) processing of gestures by children and young adults, and (2) functions of gesture production for young adults, elderly adults, and individuals with neurocognitive problems. Together, these studies suggest that speakers and listeners can use gestures for different functions such as a compensation tool during communication and thinking, which interact with how individuals use cognitive resources.

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