Exploring the relation between gesture presentation perspective and children’s spatial performance

Abstract The study investigated whether the perspective of multimodal input in visuospatial maps predicts children’s spatial performance, particularly verbal recall and direction-following behavior. 5-year-old monolingual Turkish children were engaged in the Directions Task, which included visuospatial maps and videos of a speaker describing routes on maps in three conditions: Speech-Gesture combination with a front-facing view, Speech-Gesture combination with an upper back angle, and Speech-only condition with a front-facing view for control. Children were asked to verbally recall and draw the route described in the videos. They also engaged in perspective-taking, mental rotation, and relational reasoning tasks. Results showed that children’s verbal recall, but not necessarily behavioral recall, was enhanced by receiving multimodal directions. Moreover, children’s relational reasoning and perspective-taking abilities modulate their verbal recall performances. The results of this study underline the importance of multimodal input and presentation perspective in enhancing children’s spatial performance.