ABSTRACT

In this study, adults naïve to organic chemistry drew stereoisomers of molecules and explained their drawings. From these explanations, we identified nine strategies that participants expressed during those explanations. Five of the nine strategies referred to properties of the molecule that were explanatorily irrelevant to solving the problem; the remaining four referred to properties that were explanatorily relevant to the solution. For each problem, we tallied which of the nine strategies were expressed within the explanation for that problem and determined whether the strategy was expressed in speech only, gesture only, or in both speech and gesture within the explanation. After these explanations, all participants watched the experimenter deliver a 2-minute training module on stereoisomers. Following the training, participants repeated the drawing + explanation task on six new problems. The number of relevant strategies that participants expressed in speech (alone or with gesture) before training did not predict their post-training scores. However, the number of relevant strategies participants expressed in gesture only before training did predict their post-training scores. Conveying relevant information about stereoisomers uniquely in gesture prior to a brief training is thus a good index of who is most likely to learn from the training. We suggest that gesture reveals explanatorily relevant implicit knowledge that reflects (and perhaps even promotes) acquisition of new understanding.

摘要

在这项研究中，对有机化学不了解的成年人绘制了分子的立体异构体并解释了它们的图画。从这些解释中，我们确定了参与者在这些解释中表达的九种策略。九种策略中有五种涉及与解决问题无关的分子特性；其余四个是指与解释相关的属性到解决方案。对于每个问题，我们计算了在该问题的解释中表达了九种策略中的哪一种，并确定策略是仅以言语表达、仅以手势表达，还是在解释中同时以言语和手势表达。在这些解释之后，所有参与者观看了实验者提供的关于立体异构体的 2 分钟培训模块。培训结束后，参与者针对六个新问题重复了绘图+解释任务。参与者在训练前以言语（单独或用手势）表达的相关策略的数量并不能预测他们的训练后分数。然而，相关的战略参与者的数量表示手势只有训练前做预测他们的训练后分数。因此，在简短的培训之前，以独特的姿势传达有关立体异构体的相关信息是最有可能从培训中学习的人的一个很好的指标。我们建议手势揭示了与解释相关的隐性知识，这些知识反映（甚至可能促进）新理解的获得。