Spatial Language Use Predicts Spatial Memory of Children: Evidence from Sign, Speech, and Speech-plus-gesture

KARADÖLLER ASTARLIOĞLU D. Z., Sümer B., Ünal E., Özyürek A.

43rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Comparative Cognition: Animal Minds, CogSci 2021, Virtual, Online, Avusturya, 26 - 29 Temmuz 2021, ss.672-678 identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Tam Metin Bildiri
  • Basıldığı Şehir: Virtual, Online
  • Basıldığı Ülke: Avusturya
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.672-678
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: co-speech gesture, sign language, spatial language, spatial memory
  • Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Hayır

Özet

There is a strong relation between children’s exposure to spatial terms and their later memory accuracy. In the current study, we tested whether the production of spatial terms by children themselves predicts memory accuracy and whether and how language modality of these encodings modulates memory accuracy differently. Hearing child speakers of Turkish and deaf child signers of Turkish Sign Language described pictures of objects in various spatial relations to each other and later tested for their memory accuracy of these pictures in a surprise memory task. We found that having described the spatial relation between the objects predicted better memory accuracy. However, the modality of these descriptions in sign, speech, or speech-plus-gesture did not reveal differences in memory accuracy. We discuss the implications of these findings for the relation between spatial language, memory, and the modality of encoding.