Silent gesture: Gesture studies with hearing participants

How do people shape the information they convey when they cannot rely on conventions from the language(s) they know? Silent gesture, a methodology in which hearing participants communicate using only their hands and bodies, has been a productive way to study this. Combined with learning and interaction, silent gesture provides the opportunity to simulate the emergence of artificial miniature sign languages in a laboratory setting, making it possible to closely observe how communicative strategies change and adapt as linguistic structure emerges. This chapter provides an overview of the phenomena investigated using silent gesture. By giving an in-depth example of silent gesture ‘in action’, we demonstrate how the method has been used to study the nature of reversible events, and their influence on word order. Furthermore, we evaluate options regarding stimuli presentation, participant selection, and setup details. Finally, we discuss silent gesture data analysis (manually as well as computationally).