RESUMEN
It is well established that gesture facilitates learning, but understanding the best way to harness gesture and how gesture helps learners are still open questions. Here, we consider one of the properties that may make gesture a powerful teaching tool: its temporal alignment with spoken language. Previous work shows that the simultaneity of speech and gesture matters when children receive instruction from a teacher (Congdon et al., 2017). In Study 1, we ask whether simultaneity also matters when children themselves are the ones who produce speech and gesture strategies. Third-graders (N = 75) were taught to produce one strategy in speech and one strategy in gesture for correctly solving mathematical equivalence problems; they were told to produce these strategies either simultaneously (S + G) or sequentially (SâG; GâS) during a training session. Learning was assessed immediately after training, at a 24-h follow-up, and at a 4-week follow-up. Children showed evidence of learning and retention across all three conditions. Study 2 was conducted to explore whether it was the special relationship between speech and gesture that helped children learn. Third-graders (N = 87) were taught an action strategy instead of a gesture strategy; all other aspects of the design were the same. Children again learned across all three conditions. But only children who produced simultaneous speech and action retained what they had learned at the follow-up sessions. Results have implications for why gesture is beneficial to learners and, taken in relation to previous literature, reveal differences in the mechanisms by which doing versus seeing gesture facilitates learning.
Asunto(s)
Gestos , Habla , Niño , Humanos , Aprendizaje , Matemática , Visión OcularRESUMEN
In the DBA/1 mouse model of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP), administration of a selective serotonin (5-HT) reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), fluvoxamine, completely suppressed seizure-induced respiratory arrest (S-IRA) at 30 min after administration (i.p.) in a dose-related manner without blocking audiogenic seizures (AGSz), but another SSRI, paroxetine, reduced S-IRA but with a delayed (24 h) onset and significant toxicity. A serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, venlafaxine, reduced S-IRA incidence, but higher doses were ineffective. A selective 5-HT7 agonist, AS-19, was totally ineffective in reducing S-IRA. In developing DBA/1 mice that had not previously experienced AGSz, administration of a nonselective 5-HT antagonist, cyproheptadine, induced a significantly greater incidence of S-IRA than that of saline. This study confirms that certain drugs that enhance the activation of 5-HT receptors are able to prevent S-IRA, but not all serotonergic drugs are equally effective, which may be relevant to the potential use of these drugs for SUDEP prevention. Serotonergic antagonists may be problematic in patients with epilepsy.