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Speech disfluency refers to the errors, pauses, or repetitions in speech production. Co-speech gestures are known to help resolve disfluency, suggesting a metacognitive involvement.Here we ask whether (1) disfluencies and gestures act as metacognitive cues in speech, and (2) they have different functions in conversational vs. non-conversational settings. Fifty participants responded to trivia questions, and rated their confidence in their answers (i.e. metacognitive judgement), either with a visible or a non-visible listener. They audibly elaborated on their answers during which we measured the frequency and type of disfluencies and co-speech gestures. We predict confidence ratings to change as a function of the rate of disfluency and the gestures produced by the participants. We also expect the rate of disfluencies and gestures change depending on the conversational setting. Our findings will contribute to understanding the multimodal nature of language and the role of metacognition in speech and gesture production.

Gesturing helps cognitive load (Kita et al., 2017) and access to details in autobiographical memories (Aydin et al., 2023). We examined gestures' roles in narrating emotional autobiographical events in first (L1) and second language (L2), expecting (1) gesture use to increase phenomenological ratings (reliving, visual imagery, auditory imagery, and importance) of the events and emotional intensity in both languages and (2) the effect to be more prominent in L2 than L1, where cognitive load increases. Twenty-nine participants (Mage=21.24) narrated positive and negative events in L1-Turkish and L2-English. No difference between L1 and L2 was found in phenomenological and emotional intensity ratings controlling for English proficiency and current mood. Representational gestures predicted imagery for negative events in L1, and non-representational gestures predicted emotional intensity and reliving for negative events in L2. Representational gestures' recollecting and non-representational gestures' fluency-resolving functions might have increased phenomenological ratings, particularly for negative events.

Metaphor comprehension studies have investigated how we process metaphors by pitting conventional metaphors against novel ones. Although these studies have yielded much data on how we comprehend metaphors, no research has examined how we process novel spatial metaphors of time.We constructed a stimuli pool of 80 spatial metaphors of time, 40 were conventional time metaphors, whereas the other 40 were novel spatial metaphors of time evenly distributed among Moving-Ego or Moving-Time perspectives and Path or Manner metaphorical motion in the main verb. Ratings by 40 participants showed that the novel metaphors had more possible interpretations, were more ambiguous, difficult to interpret, less apt, and less conventional. A pilot study with 10 participants showed that these properties of metaphors were linked to metaphor interpretation and temporal gesture production in various ways. This study will continue to investigate how we process and represent novel spatial metaphors of time with more participants.

Hand gestures have been shown to enhance overall verbal divergent and convergent creative thinking, especially for people with high imagery. In the present study, we tested whether gestures can also boost creative imagery, or creative visual imagination, as both creativity and gestures might rely on visuospatial skills. Participants first generated ideas regarding a simple unfinished figure and then completed the figure with their favorite idea. Spontaneous and encouraged gesture frequencies during idea generation and verbal descriptions of the idea before drawing it were calculated. We found that iconic gestures produced when generating ideas could lead to more vivid and original creative imagery. However, gesturing during idea description could result in reduced transformativeness (i.e., reduced modification and flexibility when drawing). These findings suggest that iconic gestures can be beneficial for visual creative imagery when generating ideas. However, once we settle on a particular idea, gesturing about it might hinder creative flexibility.

Filled pauses (e.g., um) help speakers to maintain a conversational floor with their listener(s). Considered an advanced form of disfluency; they emerge when children obtain some language competency. Bilinguals might frequently produce filled pauses as they are sensitive to communication. This longitudinal study examined Turkish-English bilingual (N=50) and Turkish monolingual (N=48) children's production of filled pauses in L1-Turkish and L2-English narratives. Children in three age groups were recruited in Time1 (5-,7- and 9-year-olds) and Time2 (6-,8- and 10-year-olds) and were asked to narrate a story from a picture book. Results showed that controlling for L1-Turkish proficiency scores, the filled pause frequency in L1-Turkish narratives increased from Time1 to Time2, both for bilinguals and monolinguals for all age groups. We obtained the same findings for bilingual children's English narratives, controlling for English proficiency. We suggest that filled pauses might stem from metacognitive processes, which become more prominent with age.

People rely on communicative cues when assessing others' knowledge levels about a topic. Speech fluency has been shown to inform these assessments (Brennan & Williams, 1995), however little is known whether co-speech gestures also impact how we judge others' level of expertise. To address this, we showed 42 participants (Mage=21.05) short videos of speakers in four conditions (fluent or disfluent speech with gestures, fluent or disfluent speech without gestures). Participants then provided FOAK (feelings of another's knowing) judgements of the speaker. A mixed effects regression analysis, with conditions as fixed and trial and subjects as random effects, revealed that fluent speech elicited higher FOAK ratings than disfluent speech, p

Preschoolers have difficulties in relational reasoning tasks, which are usually attributed to their object focus. Object focus can be reduced by using basic shapes familiar to children and could differ across children. Therefore, in Experiment 1, we investigated 25 4-year-olds' performance in the relational match-to-sample task (RMTS), using basic shapes with training, and testing sameness and difference. In Experiment 2, 41 4- to 5-year-olds were tested in the RMTS, using basic shapes, manipulating familiarity, without training, and testing only sameness. We also investigated whether children's use of object property words (e.g., color, shape) was directly associated with their performance. Our results showed that children performed above the chance level when tested on sameness but not on difference (Experiment 1). Furthermore, basic shapes but not familiar shapes enhanced preschoolers' performance in the RMTS (Experiment 2). Children's use of object property words dampened their performance. These findings underline the importance of task- and child-related factors when investigating children's relational reasoning in particular and cognitive performance in general.

How does parental causal input relate to children's later comprehension of causal verbs? Causal constructions in verbs differ across languages. Turkish has both lexical and morphological causatives. We asked whether (1) parental causal language input varied for different types of play (guided vs. free play), (2) early parental causal language input predicted children's causal verb understanding. Twenty-nine infants participated at three timepoints. Parents used lexical causatives more than morphological ones for guided-play for both timepoints, but for free-play, the same difference was only found at Time 2. For Time 3, children were tested on a verb comprehension and a vocabulary task. Morphological causative input, but not lexical causative input, during free-play predicted children's causal verb comprehension. For guided-play, the same relation did not hold. Findings suggest a role of specific types of causal input on children's understanding of causal verbs that are received in certain play contexts.

Becoming productive with grammatical categories is a gradual process in children's language development. Here, we investigated this transition process by focusing on Turkish causatives. Previous research examining spontaneous and elicited production of Turkish causatives with familiar verbs attested the onset and early stages of productivity at ages 2 to 3 (Aksu-Koç & Slobin, 1985; Nakipoglu, Uzundag, & Sarigül, 2021). So far, however, we know very little about children's understanding of causatives with novel verbs. In the present study, we asked: (a) When does the generalization of causative morphology in a novel context emerge? and (b) What role does child-directed input play in this development? To answer the first question, we conducted comprehension-judgment experiments with children aged 2;6-6;1 using pseudo-verbs (Study 1 & 2). Results showed that children preferred the Turkish causative suffix -DIr over an unrelated or no suffix to denote caused events earliest at age 4;10. To answer the second question, we analyzed child-directed speech from a longitudinal corpus of Turkish language acquisition (Study 3). Results showed that when addressing children younger than age 3, caregivers used the -DIr suffix with little variation considering the overall variability of verbs they could utter. Overall, these findings suggest that productivity with morphological causatives in a novel context emerges in a later stage of acquisition. This later development might partly be accounted for by the insufficient variation of morphological causatives in the early input.

Language development is intertwined with motor development. This study examined how visual processing might mediate the relation between language development and motor skills in preterm (PT, n = 34, Mean gestational age = 30 weeks) and full-term infants (FT, n = 35, Mean gestational age = 38.9 weeks) at 13 months of age. Infants' visual processing, fine and gross motor skills were tested using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning. Parents reported on infants' language skills (word comprehension and early communicative behavior), using the Turkish version of CDI (TCDI). Results showed that PT infants performed worse than their FT peers on gross motor skills and visual processing, but not on language. When controlling for age and neonatal condition (being preterm or not), visual processing mediated the relation between gross motor skills and word comprehension as well as early communicative behavior. However, for fine motor skills, visual processing mediated the relation between fine motor skills and early communicative behavior but not word comprehension. The relations between motor skills and visual processing were more robust for the PT group than the FT group. Following developmental cascades, these findings suggest that motor skills contribute to language development through visual processing. These relations are prominent for preterm infants who have delays in motor skills. PT children's limited interactions with their environment due to problems in motor skills can be connected to delays in visual processing., Author(s): Mert Kobas [sup.1] , Erim Kizildere [sup.1] , Isil Dogan [sup.1] , Asli Aktan-Erciyes [sup.2] , Ö. Ece Demir-Lira [sup.3] , Ipek Akman [sup.4] , Tilbe Göksun [sup.1] Author [...]

Temporal perspectives have been studied as a part of spatial thinking of time. They allow us to place ourselves and temporal events on a timeline, making it easier to spatialize time. This study investigates how we adopt temporal perspectives in temporal gestures. We asked participants to retell temporal scenarios written in the Moving-Ego (ME), Moving-Time (MT), and Time-Reference-Point (Time-RP) perspectives in spontaneous and elicited gesture conditions. Participants adopted temporal perspectives similarly regardless of the gesture condition, with few differences. Our results showed that participants’ temporal gestures resonated better with the Ego-Reference-Point versus Time-Reference-Point distinction. Participants produced more ME and Time-RP gestures for the corresponding scenarios and speech, however the MT perspective was not adopted more than the others in any condition. Our findings show that we incorporate temporal perspectives into our temporal gestures to a considerable extent, however, the classical ME and MT classification may not hold for temporal gestures.

We investigated the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people’s value temporal focus, religiosity, and time spatialization. Samples of young participants from eight cultures (Americans, Spaniards, Serbs, Bosniaks, Croats, Moroccans, Turks, and Chinese) collected before the pandemic (N = 497, mean age = 21.09) were matched with samples collected during the first confinement period (N = 497, mean age = 20.96). Our results in study 1 showed that during the pandemic, young adults were less religious, more future-focused, and placed the future in front to of them in a greater extent. In study 2, using the whole sample collected during the pandemic (N = 893, mean age = 21.94), we observed that the more affected the participants were by the pandemic, the greater their future focus, the lower their religiosity, and the greater their tendency to locate the future in front. These pattern of results held in most cultures.

Contrary to the classic idea of arbitrariness in mappings between words and meanings, many languages have words that mimic the sounds of their referents (onomatopoeia) and other subtler sound symbolic associations. However, our knowledge concerning the characteristics of sound-meaning links is still limited. Previous research mostly focused on languages with a large (e.g., Japanese) or limited (e.g., English) inventory of sound symbolic words. We conducted a word-production study with native speakers of Turkish, a language with a moderate amount of sound symbolic words, and examined links between sound properties (e.g., voiced vs. voiceless) and semantic dimensions (e.g., size, speed) in describing motions. Some of the sound-meaning links identified were the links found in Japanese and English samples in previous studies (Saji et al., 2019), whereas many seem to be specific to Turkish. This study provides initial evidence for language-specific sound symbolism in Turkish and links that are consistent across languages.

We investigated recency bias (i.e., choosing the second option among two) of 3- to 5-year-old preschoolers (n=59) in a free order language, Turkish, regarding individual differences in working memory and verbal skills. Children were presented with a decision-making task in which they responded to questions about an imaginary character’s decisions with familiar and unfamiliar objects in 3 word orders (both options at the beginning, both at the end, or first option at the beginning while the second at the end). Children exhibited bias in all word orders. WM skills, not language skills, predicted bias, even after controlling for age. As children aged, their bias decreased for unfamiliar options when both were at the beginning. Recency bias also decreased as children’s WM skills improved when both options were at the beginning. Children are not mindful decision-makers and their WM skills interact with the way questions are asked.

Gestures facilitate speech production by helping speakers reduce cognitive load. Studies on gesture-speech interaction mostly examined the effect of representational gestures on spatial contexts. However, abstract deictics (e.g., pointing at objects that are not visually present) might also have a role in facilitating cognitive processes. The present study investigated the effect of gestures on disfluency rates by presenting a narrative task in three conditions: spontaneous, restricted, and encouraged gesture use. We found that disfluency rates across three conditions did not significantly differ. The use of abstract deictics in the spontaneous gesture use condition was a significant predictor of disfluency rates in the gesture restricted condition. Results indicate that gestures’ facilitative roles might be manifested differently depending on the context. Abstract deictics might also benefit speakers, especially in a narrative context. Studying abstract deictics can provide new insights on gesture and speech production interaction.

Online data collection has become a prominent option due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is crucial to understand to what extent online studies can be compared with face-to-face studies, particularly in multimodal language research on which the modes of communication have a crucial effect. This study investigated multimodal communication across face-to-face and videoconferencing settings, focusing on gesture production and speech disfluency in a daily routine description task (N=64). Results suggested that overall disfluency rate was higher for those who communicated via videoconferencing than those who communicated face-to-face. The use of specific disfluency types also differed across the two settings, signaling an interplay between cognitive and communicative strategies. Overall gesture frequency and iconic gesture use were comparable across the two settings. Iconic gesture use negatively predicted the overall disfluency rate, regardless of the setting. Using different contexts is required to understand whether multimodal language differs between face-to-face and online communication.

Background: Coding has been added to school curricula in several countries, being one of the necessary competencies of the 21st century. Although it has also been suggested to foster the development of several cognitive skills such as computational thinking and problem-solving, studies on the effects of coding are very limited, provide mixed results, and lack causal evidence. Aim: This study aims to evaluate the impact of a learn-to-code programme on three cognitive skills in children: computational thinking, fluid intelligence, and spatial orientation, using a randomized trial. Sample: One hundred seventy-four (n = 81 girls) 4th-grade children participated in the study. Methods: Children were randomly assigned to one of the three 10-week learning programmes: learn-to-code (treatment of interest), mathematics (another STEM-related comparison treatment), and reading (control). Children responded to paper-pencil computational thinking, and spatial orientation measurements, and face-to-face matrix reasoning task at pre- and post-tests. Results: Results showed that children's computational thinking scores increased significantly only in the learn-to-code condition. Fluid intelligence significantly increased in all conditions, possibly due to a practice effect. The spatial orientation did not improve in any of the conditions. Conclusion: These findings suggested that learning to code can be selectively beneficial for the development of computational thinking skills while not effective for spatial reasoning and fluid intelligence.

Co-speech hand gestures offer a rich avenue for research into studying emotion communication because they serve as both prominent expressive bodily cues and an integral part of language. Despite such a strategic relevance, gesture-speech integration and interaction have received less research focus on its emotional function compared to its cognitive function. This review aims to shed light on the current state of the field regarding the interplay between co-speech hand gestures and emotions, focusing specifically on the role of gestures in expressing and understanding both others' and one's own emotions. The article concludes by addressing current limitations in the field and proposing future directions for researchers investigating gesture-emotion interaction. Our goal is to provide a roadmap to researchers in their exploration of the role of gestures in emotions, ultimately contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of how gestures and emotions intersect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the influences of early and intense L2 exposure on children's L1 causative verb production, assessed by an experimental causative verb production task. Turkish expresses causality by morphological and lexical means, whereas English does so by periphrastic and lexical means. Learning L2 English might enhance L1 Turkish causative verb production by highlighting the parallels and contrasts in causal expressions between the languages, which may result in an enriched L1 causative use. Five-, 7 -, and 9-year-old L1-Turkish L2-English bilingual (n = 80) and L1-Turkish monolingual (n = 80) children participated in the study in L1-Turkish. Results indicated that language group differences only emerged for the use of morphological causative verbs in favor of 5-year-old bilinguals compared with monolingual peers. Age group differences occurred only for the monolingual group and only for morphological verbs. Specifically, monolingual 7- and 9-year-olds performed better than monolingual 5-year-olds. Causative verb-type differences were only seen for 5-year-old monolinguals, who performed better for lexical than morphological verbs; in contrast, 5-year-old bilinguals performed equally well on the two types of causatives, and better than 5-year-old monolinguals on morphological causatives. Overall, these findings indicate that learning an L2 with structural similarities and differences compared with L1 might enhance children's awareness and correct use of causal linguistic structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children need to learn the demands of their native language in the early vocabulary development phase. In this dynamic process, parental multimodal input may shape neurodevelopmental trajectories while also being tailored by child‐related factors. Moving beyond typically characterized group profiles, in this article, we synthesize growing evidence on the effects of parental multimodal input (amount, quality, or absence), domain‐specific input (space and math), and language‐specific input (causal verbs and sound symbols) on preterm, full‐term, and deaf children's early vocabulary development, focusing primarily on research with children learning Turkish and Turkish Sign Language. We advocate for a theoretical perspective, integrating neonatal characteristics and parental input, and acknowledging the unique constraints of languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractIn recent years, the integration of programming education into school curricula has reemerged, acknowledging its importance and potential to enhance critical cognitive abilities among students. This systematic review delves into the influence of programming education on higher-order executive functions (EFs), including problem-solving, reasoning, and planning, in school-aged children. The systematic literature search identified 18 studies meeting inclusion criteria. Of these, 14 studies showed significant positive effects of coding education on EFs, particularly in problem-solving and planning. However, limitations such as the absence of randomized control trials and age-related clustering of skills underscore the need for more robust research to ascertain the impact of coding education on EFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sound symbolism, the iconic link between speech sounds and meanings, helps children's verb learning. In sound symbolically rich languages such as Turkish, hearing sound symbolic words might facilitate early verb learning and later language-specific expressions of motion events, by providing an easier way to map verbs onto events. These links could be much stronger for children who had difficulties in word-referent mapping (e.g., preterm children). The current study examined the association of Turkish-speaking parents' sound symbolic input at 20 months with children's concurrent verb knowledge and later motion event descriptions at 48 months. Ninety-one parent-infant dyads (Mage = 19.92 months, SD = 1.38; 41 preterms) were observed at 20 months, where we measured sound symbolic input and verb knowledge. Sixty-four of these dyads participated in a motion event description task at 48 months (25 preterms, Mage = 48.79 months, SD = 1.68), where we coded how children use path (the trajectory of motion) and manner (how an action is performed) of a motion. Results from the robust regression models suggested that for preterm children, parents' sound symbolic input used in adverb forms was positively and concurrently related to children's verb knowledge. Only for full-term children, sound symbolic input (used as adverbs) predicted full-term children's use of both path and manner information in their descriptions at 48 months. Lack of replication of these findings with outlier-removed analyses could only suggest a trend toward the differential contributions of sound symbolic input in different child populations and the importance of sentential cues in sound symbolic input in verb learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People are more disfluent in their second language (L2) than their first language (L1). Gesturing facilitates cognitive processes, including speech production. This study investigates speech disfluency and representational gesture production across Turkish-English bilinguals' L1 (Turkish) and L2 (English) through a narrative retelling task (N = 27). Results showed that people were more disfluent and used more representational gestures in English. Controlling for L2 proficiency, people were still more disfluent in English. The more people were proficient in L2, the more they used gestures in that language. Similarly, disfluency-gesture co-occurrences were more common in English. L2 proficiency was positively correlated with the likelihood of a disfluency being accompanied by a gesture. These findings suggest that gestures may not necessarily compensate for weak language skills. Rather, people might gesture during disfluent moments if they can detect their errors, suggesting a close link between representational gestures and language competency in benefiting from gestures when disfluent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many training programs have aimed to improve creative thinking abilities in various settings. The study of relevant literature revealed a relatively lower number of creativity programs for children than those developed for adults. The current work introduces a new and comprehensive nineweek long creativity intervention program implemented (out of school-setting) in 8- to 11-year-old children of socioeconomically disadvantaged families in Turkey. The intervention program was organized around four main themes (Persona, Object, Surrounding, Experience) and composed of nine activities: collection making, identity box, building a memory-device, designing an object, sensory mapping, designing a space, visual storytelling, exploring an imaginary planet, and solving a social conflict. Children (n = 159) were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups, and they took the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking both before and after the intervention. Results showed that children in the experimental group had significantly higher verbal fluency and originality scores at the posttest compared to the control group. These results provide further evidence for the trainability of creativity and introduce a novel, affordable creativity intervention program that is feasible enough to be implemented in and out of the school setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal perspectives allow us to place ourselves and temporal events on a timeline, making it easier to conceptualize time. This study investigates how we take different temporal perspectives in our temporal gestures. We asked participants (n = 36) to retell temporal scenarios written in the Moving‐Ego, Moving‐Time, and Time‐Reference‐Point perspectives in spontaneous and encouraged gesture conditions. Participants took temporal perspectives mostly in similar ways regardless of the gesture condition. Perspective comparisons showed that temporal gestures of our participants resonated better with the Ego‐ (i.e., Moving‐Ego and Moving‐Time) versus Time‐Reference‐Point distinction instead of the classical Moving‐Ego versus Moving‐Time contrast. Specifically, participants mostly produced more Moving‐Ego and Time‐Reference‐Point gestures for the corresponding scenarios and speech; however, the Moving‐Time perspective was not adopted more than the others in any condition. Similarly, the Moving‐Time gestures did not favor an axis over the others, whereas Moving‐Ego gestures were mostly sagittal and Time‐Reference‐Point gestures were mostly lateral. These findings suggest that we incorporate temporal perspectives into our temporal gestures to a considerable extent; however, the classical Moving‐Ego and Moving‐Time classification may not hold for temporal gestures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language about time is an integral part of how we spatialise time. Factors like temporal focus can be related to time spatialisation as well. The current study investigates the role of language in how we spatialise time, using a temporal diagram task modified to include the lateral axis. We asked participants to place temporal events provided in non-metaphorical, sagittal metaphorical, and non-sagittal metaphorical scenarios on a temporal diagram. We found that sagittal metaphors elicited sagittal spatialisations of time, whereas the other two types elicited lateral spatialisations. Participants sometimes used the sagittal and lateral axes in combination to spatialise time. Exploratory analyses indicated that individuals' time management habits, temporal distance, and event order in written scenarios were related to time spatialisations. Their temporal focus scores, however, were not. Findings suggest that temporal language plays an important role in how we map space onto time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined whether the metacognitive system monitors the potential positive effects of gestures on spatial thinking. Participants (N = 59, 31F, Mage = 21.67) performed a mental rotation task, consisting of 24 problems varying in difficulty, and they evaluated their confidence in their answers to problems in either gesture or control conditions. The results revealed that performance and confidence were higher in the gesture condition, in which the participants were asked to use their gestures during problem-solving, compared with the control condition, extending the literature by evidencing gestures' role in metacognition. Yet, the effect was only evident for females, who already performed worse than males, and when the problems were difficult. Encouraging gestures adversely affected performance and confidence in males. Such results suggest that gestures selectively influence cognition and metacognition and highlight the importance of task-related (i.e., difficulty) and individual-related variables (i.e., sex) in elucidating the links between gestures, confidence, and spatial thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bilingual and monolingual children might have different styles of using multimodal language. This study investigates speech disfluency and gesture production of 5- and 7-year-old Turkish monolingual (N = 61) and Turkish–English bilingual children (N = 51). We examined monolinguals' Turkish narratives and bilinguals' Turkish and English narratives. Results indicated that bilinguals were more disfluent than monolinguals, particularly for silent and filled (e.g., umm) pauses. Bilinguals used silent pauses and repetitions (e.g., cat cat) more frequently in English than in Turkish. Gesture use was comparable across language and age groups, except for iconic gestures. Monolinguals produced more iconic gestures than bilinguals. Children's overall gesture frequency predicted disfluency rates only in Turkish. Different gesture types might be orchestrated in the multimodal system, contributing to narrative fluency. The use of disfluency and gesture types might provide insight into bilingual and monolingual children's language development and communication strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]