Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-9pm4c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T23:20:35.601Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Part 3 - Modeling gesture performance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2010

David McNeill
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Get access

Summary

The chapters in this part agree that modeling sets a standard for theories of gesture performance. If a process is well understood, it should be possible to design a model of it. If the model is computational, there is the further possibility of actually running the model and comparing its output to nature – observed gestures and speech in our case. Two models are described in this part. Neither is yet a running computational model, though both have been conceptualized with this goal in mind. The Krauss et al. and de Ruiter models propose ways to add gesture to the Speaking model presented by Levelt in 1989, a computer-like information-processing model of speech that did not make provision for gesture performance (see Gigerenzer & Goldstein 1996 for analysis of the Speaking model as part of the tradition of computer-like models in psychology). The Krauss et al. and de Ruiter models, while agreeing on the general framework, differ in a number of details that affect both the scope of the models and their internal organization. The chapters themselves point out these differences. Each chapter can be read in part as a presentation of its model and in part as a critical discussion of the other model. The third chapter, by McNeill, raises a question for both of the other chapters and for information-processing-type models in general. The question concerns how the context of speaking is to be handled. Gestures show that every utterance, even though a seemingly self-contained grammatical unit, incorporates content from outside its own structure (called a ‘catchment’, an extended example of which is described in the chapter).

Type
Chapter
Information
Language and Gesture , pp. 259 - 260
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×