Abstract
This study examined the effects of hand gestures based on American Sign Language signs on the recall of English sentences in terms of verb categories and word frequencies. In the first experiment, 58 subjects were divided into two groups. All the subjects were presented with 14 English sentences which consisted of 7 sentences with action verbs as a predicate verb and 7 sentences with state verbs as a predicate verb. Each sentence was pronounced by a native speaker of English two times for both groups, and in addition, the meaning of each predicate verb was described through hand gestures made by the native speaker for the second group. The subjects of the first group were required to pronounce those sentences at the second time and to write them on a worksheet after viewing each sentence. The subjects of the second group were required to pronounce the sentences and copy the gestures at the second time. All the materials were presented consecutively to the subjects by means of a videotape. Then, both groups were given a test in which they were asked to recall the 14 English sentences. The second group achieved significantly higher recalls for both types of sentences than the first. And there was no significant difference between the recalls for both type sentences in both groups. In the second experiment, 44 subjects were divided into two groups. Both groups were presented with 14 English sentences, in this time, which consisted of 7 sentences with high frequency verbs as a predicate verb and 7 sentences with low frequency verbs as a predicate verb. The procedure of the experiment was the same with the first experiment. The hand gesture group achieved significantly higher recalls for both type sentences than the other group which had simply heard pronunciations. There was significant difference between recalls for both types of sentences in both groups.
