Elizabeth M. Wakefield-Connell

My research program focuses on how the actions we produce and observe every day have the power to help us learn and change the way we think. In particular, I examine two distinct, yet related, types of actions we make with our hands: Concrete actions, which are used to directly manipulate our environment, and gestures, which often accompany our speech, and help us represent and manipulate ideas. Employing behavioral, eye tracking and neuroimaging methods, my research team explores how these forms of movement affect cognitive development from early childhood to adulthood. My research touches on many domains, including language, music, and, mathematics, but has three common goals. These are: (1) to understand how we process and interpret the meaning of gesture and action, (2) to determine how these forms of movement have similar and distinct impacts on how we learn, and (3) to explore the mechanisms that drive these cognitive effects.

 

How children and adults learn, generalize and retain information learned through action and gesture; how this differs based on an individual’s ability to interpret movement as meaningful; how this differs based on whether action and gesture are performed by a learner or teacher.