Research led by the University of Warwick has examined how four-year-olds, 12-year-olds and adults used gestures to communicate in the absence of speech.
The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, asked participants to watch on-screen animations of an action, such as jumping or rolling, and then to use their hands to mime the action without speaking.
The researchers examined whether the direction of travel and manner of motion were expressed simultaneously in a single gesture or expressed in two separate hand movements.
The results suggested that gestures used by young children tended to segment information into separate movements more than the other age groups.
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