Temporal synchrony between speech, action and gesture during language production

Researchers have theorised that speech and gesture are integrated in communication. We ask whether this integrated relationship is indexed by a unique temporal link between speech and gesture. University students performed videotaped tasks that elicited: (1) speech and action descriptions about how to act on objects and (2) speech and gesture descriptions about how to act on objects. Integration was indexed by measuring the onset of speech with actions and speech with gestures (in milliseconds), with smaller differences reflecting a greater degree of synchrony. One hundred per cent of the subjects gestured in the gesture condition and performed actions in the action condition. Speech and gesture were more tightly synchronised than speech with action. The greater synchrony between gesture and speech suggests that the two could be uniquely designed to work together for the purpose of communication.