When Gestures and Words Speak Differently

Consider a 6-year-old child atI tempting to justify her belief that the amount of water changed when it was poured from a tall, skinny glass into a wide dish. The child says, It's different because this one's tall and that one's short, thus making it clear that she has focused on the heights of the containers. However, in the very same utterance, the child in dicates with her hand shaped like a C first the diameter of the glass and then, with a wider C, the larger diameter of the dish. The child speaks about the containers' heights but has also noticed?not necessarily consciously?that the containers differ in width as well.