Gesture–speech incongruency disrupts multimodal processing, increasing response times and error rates¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · theoretical r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? The review reports, citing Kandana Arachchige et al. (2021), that gesture–speech incongruency disrupts multimodal processing, increasing response times and error rates as working-memory resources are recruited to resolve semantic mismatches. → Manuela Macedonia 2026

Evidence¶

Manuela Macedonia 2026¶

Manuela Macedonia, Lihui Hu, Brian Mathias. (2026). Why Some Gestures Work Better than Others: Toward a Model of Gesture-Supported Vocabulary Learning. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-026-10222-8

q2 · i? · theoretical · r3

The review reports, citing Kandana Arachchige et al. (2021), that "Gesture–speech incongruency has been shown to disrupt multimodal processing, increasing response times and error rates". No effect sizes are printed in the review.

"Gesture–speech incongruency has been shown to disrupt multimodal processing, increasing response times and error rates as working-memory resources are recruited to resolve semantic mismatches (Kandana Arachchige et al., 2021)."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Observing gestures aids recall more when gestures provide complementary rather than redundant information (review attributes this to Austin et al., 2018) — related
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• Semantically congruent iconic gestures improve L2 vocabulary retention relative to meaningless or incongruent gestures — related
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