英语听力文摘 English Digest 383、手势有助记忆（在线收听）

Hand Gestures
手势

You know, radio is a great thing. Here I am! Flying high above the earth, but my voice is coming across just as if I were sitting in front of you. Communicating by voice alone has its drawbacks, though.

For example, I can’t use hand gestures to clarify what I mean. And, as it turns out, that makes a big difference. Researchers at the University of Otago in New Zealand wanted to know how much a relevant hand gesture helps to communicate an idea. They had volunteers watch video clips of a woman saying different simple phrases, such as “the square box,” or “peel the banana.”

In some, she simply said the phrase without moving her hands. Peel the banana. In others, she made the kind of hand gesture most of us would make when saying that–a sort of banana-peeling mime that matches the content of the phrase. In a third group, she made gestures with her hands that were unrelated to what she was saying.

The results? People who got the matching content hand gestures remembered those phrases more effectively than folks who got just the words alone. And folks who got just the words alone did better than folks who got irrelevant hand gestures!

What does this show us? We already knew that all the hand-waving we do when we speak isn’t just nervous energy; it serves various functions. Apparently, one of them is to help the listener remember what you’ve said.

要知道，收音机是伟大的发明。现在，我在演播厅，可是，我的声音让你觉得我就在你面前。但是，光凭声音沟通是有缺点的。

比如，我现在无法用手势来表达自己。这说明手势对沟通很重要。新西兰奥塔拉大学的研究，想知道相关的手势对表达想法有多少帮助。志愿者被要求观看视频短片，短片中有个女人在说各种简单短语，比如，“方盒子”、“剥香蕉”……

比如，剥香蕉。第一组志愿观看的视频中，她只是说出来，而不做任何手势。但是，第二组志愿观看的视频中，她模仿默剧，做剥香蕉手势。在第三组志愿观看的视频中，她做了一些和剥香蕉毫不相干的手势。

结果是什么呢？第二组志愿者比第一组记得更好；而第一组比第三组记得更好！

这说明什么呢？我们在说话时所做的手势，除了情绪表达还有更多其它用处。很显然，手势有助于听者记忆。