Do speakers' gestures affect listeners' understanding of temporal relationships between events?

This study investigated how the direction and movement of gestures affect mental representations of time. Previous research by Tversky and Jamalian (2021) demonstrated that gestures influence how people perceive temporal relationships, with participants' drawings reflecting the shape (circular or linear) of the gestures they observed. However, the influence of gesture direction was not examined. In the present study, 50 Japanese adults were exposed to different types of gestures, including leftward and rightward linear or circular gestures. Participants were then asked to draw diagrams representing the temporal flow of events. The results showed significant associations between the type of gesture and the participants' drawings. Specifically, the direction and form of the gestures - whether leftward or rightward, linear or circular - significantly influenced how participants depicted temporal relationships. These findings highlight the importance of both gesture direction and movement in shaping individuals' mental representations of time.