Gestural modulation of speech production: The role of head movement

Continuous speech, as in conversation or monologue, is normally accompanied by numerous body movements-hand gestures, head nods, posture changes, etc-which are important for the understanding of communication in general and of speech production in particular.

Abstract

Introduction Continuous speech, as in conversation or monologue, is normally accompanied by numerous body movements-hand gestures, head nods, posture changes, etc.-which are important for the understanding of communication in general, and of speech production in particular, bearing on many levels of linguistic performance. They offer a unique route for investigating cognitive processes underlying speech production (Butterworth and Beattie, 1978; McNeil1 and Levy, 1982), encoding and decoding processes (Dittman, 1972), and the production of suprasegmental features such as stress, intonation, rate and rhythm (Birdwhistell, 1970; Bennett, 1980; Condon, 1980).