The influence of conversation parameters on gesture production in aphasia

ABSTRACT

Conversation is important in everyday life and this importance is not diminished in aphasia. Context parameters such as topic and partner are known to influence the linguistic content of conversations. With gesture being closely linked to language, these parameters may influence gestures used in conversations. This has not been investigated in previous studies. This study explored the spontaneous use of gestures in the conversations of participants with aphasia (PWA) and neurologically healthy participants (NHP). It aimed to examine the influence of conversation topic and partner on gesture production overall and on the production of semantically rich and empty gestures. Twenty PWA and 21 NHP were filmed during conversations with different topics (narrative & procedural) and different partners (familiar & unfamiliar). Analysis 1 investigated the influence of the conversation topic on gesture production overall and on the production of semantically rich and empty gestures. In Analysis 2, the influence of the conversation partner on gesture production was investigated. Both groups produced significantly more gestures in procedural than in narrative conversations. Moreover, PWA and NHP produced significantly more semantically rich gestures in procedural conversations. In terms of the conversation partner, both groups produced significantly more gestures in the conversations with the unfamiliar than in those with the familiar conversation partner. For all findings, there were no group differences and no interactions between group and context parameters. These findings shed light on factors that influence gesture production and suggest that both modalities should be viewed together as a communicative resource for PWA.

KEYWORDS:

• Aphasia
• gesture
• conversation
• topic
• partner

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by a PhD scholarship awarded by City University of London.

Disclosure of interest

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Notes

¹ The potential FCP of 8A did not give consent to data collection. Due to limited availability of 8A, there was no time to find an alternative. Therefore, the data were not included into the analyses investigating the difference between the conversation partners..

² Ten participants served as UFCP for two or three participants. In addition, two participants served as both FCP and UFCP for different participants.