American psychologists from the University of Georgia found that people resort to the same gestures when they cannot use speech. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine Language and Cognition (LAC).
The experts’ conclusions are based on the results of an experiment in which children aged 3 to 12 participated. Half of them spoke only English, the other half spoke only Turkish. The scientists chose English and Turkish because they are significantly different from each other.
Participants were asked to describe the same events first with speech and gestures, and then with hand gestures only. Psychologists have found that children’s movements differ when they talk and point at the same time. But when switching to non-verbal language, the guys began to show approximately the same actions.
The study also showed that these patterns emerge at very early ages, starting around age 3-4.
Scientists also conducted a similar experiment on blind and sighted adults; Some of these adults spoke only English, and some spoke only Turkish. The results were similar to the first study. At the same time, even people who were blind from birth showed the same movements as sighted people, even though they had never seen such movements before.
According to psychologists, this model points to the existence of a universal system of gestures that allows us to communicate with each other, regardless of language, hearing or vision.
Biologists before I learnedthat humans understand chimpanzee sign language.