How could gesture facilitate lexical access?

Abstract

Several investigators, including speech–language pathologists have examined the hypothesis that the production of a gesture can facilitate word retrieval, in healthy speakers as in persons with aphasia. However, the mechanisms by which gesture can prime lexical access remain unclear. In this commentary, I discuss various models proposed in the literature on gesture and language production in order to make explicit the relationships between the various components underlying multi-modal communication. Empirical and conceptual issues are raised to conclude that, even if the hypothesis of lexical priming was not supported, gesture training for communicative purposes may nevertheless be helpful for persons with aphasia.

Keywords:

• Brain damage
• gesture production
• lexical access