Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

There is a long-standing assumption that gestural forms aregeared by a set of modes of representation (acting,representing, drawing, moulding) with each techniqueexpressing speakers’ focus of attention on specific aspects ofreferents (Müller, 2013). Beyond different taxonomiesdescribing the modes of representation, it remains unclearwhat factors motivate certain depicting techniques overothers. Results from a pantomime generation task show thatpantomimes are not entirely idiosyncratic but rather followgeneralisable patterns constrained by their semantic category.We show that a) specific modes of representations arepreferred for certain objects (acting for manipulable objectsand drawing for non-manipulable objects); and b) that use andordering of deictics and modes of representation operate intandem to distinguish between semantically related concepts(e.g., “to drink” vs “mug”). This study provides yet moreevidence that our ability to communicate through silentgesture reveals systematic ways to describe events and objectsaround us.