- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Physics Education Research

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Editors' Suggestion
  • Open Access

Using representational gesture to enact instants in collaborative problem solving in physics

Emma Teresa Booth1,*, Virginia J. Flood2,†, and Benedikt W. Harrer3,‡

  • *Contact author: et.booth@berkeley.edu
  • †Contact author: vflood@buffalo.edu
  • ‡Contact author: bwharrer@buffalo.edu
PDF

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 21, 020136 – Published 27 October, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/nw3l-dzfn

Abstract

Embodied forms of representation like gesture have been shown to play an important role in how learners conceptualize phenomena in physics; however, we know little about how students use gesture to capture the idea of instantaneity. Drawing on multimodal microanalysis of interaction, we examine how undergraduate physics students use representational gesture to make sense of instants or single moments in time while modeling energy dynamics. Our analysis demonstrates how students use four different forms of representational gesture to capture instantaneity: These include (i) looping and replaying a physical action, (ii) showing a tiny subinterval of time, (iii) freezing a frame of an action, and (iv) marking a boundary location on an imaginary timeline. Implications for physics learning are discussed.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (143)

  1. L. Boroditsky and A. Gaby, Remembrances of times east: Absolute spatial representations of time in an Australian aboriginal community, Psychol. Sci. 21, 1635 (2010).
  2. K. Cooperrider, R. Núñez, and E. Sweetser, 134. The conceptualization of time in gesture, in Handbücher Zur Sprach- Und Kommunikationswissenschaft/ Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science (HSK) 38/2, edited by C. Müller, A. Cienki, E. Fricke, S. Ladewig, D. McNeill, and J. Bressem (De Gruyter, 2014), pp. 1781–1788, 10.1515/9783110302028.1781.
  3. V. Evans, Temporal frames of reference, Cognit. Linguist. 24, 393 (2013).
  4. R. E. Núñez and E. Sweetser, With the future behind them: Convergent evidence from Aymara language and gesture in the crosslinguistic comparison of spatial construals of time, Cognit. Sci. 30, 401 (2006).
  5. C. Callender, The common now, Philos. Issues 18, 339 (2008).
  6. S. Carroll, From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time (Penguin Publishing Group, East Rutherford, 2010).
  7. C. Rovelli, The Order of Time (Riverhead Books, New York, 2018).
  8. S. C. Hale, Spacetime and the abstract/concrete distinction, Philos. Stud. 53, 85 (1988).
  9. M. Dorato and M. Wittmann, The now and the passage of time, KronoScope 15, 191 (2015).
  10. E. Husserl, The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2019).
  11. G. Lakoff and M. Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought, Nachdr. ed. (Basic Books, New York, 2008).
  12. H. D. Zeh, Time travel: Is it science or mere fiction?, Phys. World 14, 48 (2001).
  13. E. Stickles and T. N. Lewis, Wednesday’s meeting really is on Friday: A meta-analysis and evaluation of ambiguous spatiotemporal language, Cognit. Sci. 42, 1015 (2018).
  14. B. Tversky and A. Jamalian, Thinking tools: Gestures change thought about time, Top. Cognit. Sci. 13, 750 (2021).
  15. A. Kendon, Gesture Visible Action as Utterance, 1st ed. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England. 2004).
  16. D. McNeill, Why We Gesture: The Surprising Role of Hand Movements in Communication, 1st ed. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England. 2015).
  17. G. Calbrid and O. Doyle, The Semiotics of French Gestures (Indiana University Press, 1990), https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/oa_monograph/book/84694.
  18. D. Alcaraz Carrión and J. Valenzuela, Distant time, distant gesture: Speech and gesture correlate to express temporal distance, Semiotica 2021, 159 (2021).
  19. R. Núñez and K. Cooperrider, The tangle of space and time in human cognition, Trends Cognit. Sci. 17, 220 (2013).
  20. A. Cienki and C. Müller, Metaphor, Gesture, and Thought, in The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, edited by R. W. Gibbs, Jr., 1st ed. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 2008), pp. 483–501.
  21. B. W. Dreyfus, A. Gupta, and E. F. Redish, Applying conceptual blending to model coordinated use of multiple ontological metaphors, Int. J. Sci. Educ. 37, 812 (2015).
  22. V. J. Flood and B. W. Harrer, Teachers’ responsiveness to students’ gestured candidate responses in whole-class STEM interactions, Classroom Discourse 14, 281 (2023).
  23. B. Gregorcic, G. Planinsic, and E. Etkina, Doing science by waving hands: Talk, symbiotic gesture, and interaction with digital content as resources in student inquiry, Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 13, 020104 (2017).
  24. Scientific & Mathematical Bodies, edited by S. Hwang and W.-M. Roth (SensePublishers, Rotterdam, 2011).
  25. C. Megowan-Romanowicz, Physics, and gesture: Spatial thinking, and mutual manifestness, in Movement Matters, edited by S. L. Macrine and J. M. B. Fugate (The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2022), pp. 163–176.
  26. T. Nobel, Body motion and physics: How elementary school students use gesture and action to make sense of the physical world, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, Tufts University, 2007.
  27. W.-M. Roth, From action to discourse: The bridging function of gestures, Cognit. Syst. Res. 3, 535 (2002).
  28. R. E. Scherr, Gesture analysis for physics education researchers, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 4, 010101 (2008).
  29. M. Singer, J. Radinsky, and S. R. Goldman, The role of gesture in meaning construction, Discourse Process 45, 365 (2008).
  30. L. Solvang and J. Haglund, Learning with friction—students’ gestures and enactment in relation to a GeoGebra simulation, Res. Sci. Educ. 52, 1659 (2022).
  31. B. Gregorcic, G. Planinsic, and E. Etkina, Doing science by waving hands: Talk, symbiotic gesture, and interaction with digital content as resources in student inquiry, Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 13, 020104 (2017).
  32. R. Steier and M. Kersting, Metaimagining and embodied conceptions of spacetime, Cognit. Instr. 37, 145 (2019).
  33. W. Potter, D. Webb, C. Paul, E. West, M. Bowen, B. Weiss, L. Coleman, and C. De Leone, Sixteen years of collaborative learning through active sense-making in physics (CLASP) at UC Davis, Am. J. Phys. 82, 153 (2014).
  34. B. Jordan and A. Henderson, Interaction analysis: Foundations and practice, J. Learn. Sci. 4, 39 (1995).
  35. J. Streeck and S. Mehus, Microethnography: The study of practice, in Handbook of Language and Social Interaction, edited by K. L. Fitch and R. E. Sanders (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, 2005), pp. 381–404.
  36. F. Erickson, Talk and Social Theory: Ecologies of Speaking and Listening in Everyday Life, 1 (Polity Press, Cambridge, England, 2004).
  37. C. Goodwin, Co-Operative Action, 1st ed. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 2017).
  38. R. Nemirovsky, M. L. Kelton, and B. Rhodehamel, Gesture and imagination: On the constitution and uses of phantasms, Gesture 12, 130 (2012).
  39. J. Streeck, The changing meanings of things: Found objects and inscriptions in social interaction, in Embodied Interaction: Language and Body in the Material World, edited by J. Streeck, C. Goodwin, and C. LeBaron (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2011), pp. 67–78.
  40. B. W. Harrer, Energy-interaction diagrams: Fostering resources for productive disciplinary engagement with energy, Am. J. Phys. 87, 520 (2019).
  41. B. Harrer and C. Paul, Modeling energy dynamics with the energy-interaction diagram, Phys. Teach. 57, 462 (2019).
  42. E. Hutchins, How a cockpit remembers its speeds, Cognit. Sci. 19, 265 (1995).
  43. W.-M. Roth and D. Lawless, Scientific investigations, metaphorical gestures, and the emergence of abstract scientific concepts, Learn. Instr. 12, 285 (2002).
  44. L. Xu and D. Clarke, What does distributed cognition tell us about student learning of science?, Res. Sci. Educ. 42, 491 (2012).
  45. L. Xu and D. Clarke, Student difficulties in learning density: A distributed cognition perspective, Res. Sci. Educ. 42, 769 (2012).
  46. D. N. Perkins, Person-plus: A distributed view of thinking and learning, in Distributed Cognitions: Psychological and Educational Considerations, edited by G. Salomon (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1993), pp. 88–110.
  47. B. W. Harrer, The multimodal interactional work of having wonderful ideas, presented at PER Conf. 2018, Washington, DC, 10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Harrer.
  48. E. Euler, E. Rådahl, and B. Gregorcic, Embodiment in physics learning: A social-semiotic look, Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 15, 010134 (2019).
  49. D. E. Trowbridge and L. C. McDermott, Investigation of student understanding of the concept of velocity in one dimension, Am. J. Phys. 48, 1020 (1980).
  50. I. A. Halloun and D. Hestenes, Common sense concepts about motion, Am. J. Phys. 53, 1056 (1985).
  51. A. M. Leonardi, S. Mobilio, and C. Fazio, An analysis of students’ misconceptions on special relativity, J. Phys. Conf. Ser. 2750, 012018 (2024).
  52. T. Wemyss and P. Van Kampen, Categorization of first-year university students’ interpretations of numerical linear distance-time graphs, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010107 (2013).
  53. R. E. Scherr, P. S. Shaffer, and S. Vokos, Student understanding of time in special relativity: Simultaneity and reference frames, Am. J. Phys. 69, S24 (2001).
  54. W. L. Chafe, Discourse, Consciousness, and Time: The Flow and Displacement of Conscious Experience in Speaking and Writing (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1994).
  55. M. Davies, Externalism and experience, in Philosophy, and Cognitive Science: Categories, Consciousness, and Reasoning, edited by A. Clark, J. Ezquerro, and J. M. Larrazabal (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 1996), pp. 1–33.
  56. E. Pöppel, Temporal mechanisms in perception, Int. Rev. Neurobiol. 37, 185 (1994).
  57. E. Pöppel, Pre-semantically defined temporal windows for cognitive processing, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 364, 1887 (2009).
  58. D. Bostock, Aristotle’s account of time, Phronesis 25, 148 (1980), http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182090.
  59. R. Sorabji and N. Kretzmann, Aristotle on the instant of change, Aristot. Soc. Suppl. 50, 69 (1976).
  60. D. Sherry, On instantaneous velocity, Hist. Philos. Q. 3, 391 (1986), http://www.jstor.org/stable/27743785.
  61. K. de Kirby, Idealized objects and material diagrams: A cultural practice-approach to understanding definition use in early geometrical problem solving, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, UC Berkeley, 2017.
  62. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Macmillan, New York, 1953).
  63. J. Airey and C. Linder, A disciplinary discourse perspective on university science learning: Achieving fluency in a critical constellation of modes, J. Res. Sci. Teach. 46, 27 (2009).
  64. J. K. Gilbert, Visualization: A metacognitive skill in science and science education, in Visualization in Science Education, edited by J. K. Gilbert (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2005), Vol. 1, pp. 9–27.
  65. V. Font, J. Bolite, and J. Acevedo, Metaphors in mathematics classrooms: Analyzing the dynamic process of teaching and learning of graph functions, Educ. Stud. Math. 75, 131 (2010).
  66. T. G. Amin, Conceptual metaphor meets conceptual change, Hum. Dev. 52, 165 (2009).
  67. E. Brewe, Energy as a substance like quantity that flows: Theoretical considerations and pedagogical consequences, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020106 (2011).
  68. D. T. Brookes and E. Etkina, Using conceptual metaphor and functional grammar to explore how language used in physics affects student learning, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 3, 010105 (2007).
  69. B. W. Dreyfus, B. D. Geller, J. Gouvea, V. Sawtelle, C. Turpen, and E. F. Redish, Ontological metaphors for negative energy in an interdisciplinary context, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 10, 020108 (2014).
  70. B. W. Harrer, V. J. Flood, and M. C. Wittmann, Productive resources in students’ ideas about energy: An alternative analysis of Watts’ original interview transcripts, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 023101 (2013).
  71. R. E. Scherr, H. G. Close, E. W. Close, and S. Vokos, Representing energy. II. Energy tracking representations, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 020115 (2012).
  72. B. W. Harrer, On the origin of energy: Metaphors and manifestations as resources for conceptualizing and measuring the invisible, imponderable, Am. J. Phys. 85, 454 (2017).
  73. R. Lancor, Using metaphor theory to examine conceptions of energy in biology, chemistry, and physics, Sci. Educ. 23, 1245 (2014).
  74. R. Duit, Teaching and learning the physics energy concept, in Teaching and Learning of Energy in K-12 Education, edited by R. F. Chen, A. Eisenkraft, D. Fortus, J. Krajcik, K. Neumann, J. Nordine, and A. Scheff (Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2014), pp. 67–85.
  75. R. Lancor, The many metaphors of energy: Using analogies as a formative assessment tool, J. Coll. Sci. Teach. 42, 38 (2013), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2505/4/jcst13_042_03_38.
  76. G. Lakoff and M. Johnson, The metaphorical structure of the human conceptual system, Cognit. Sci. 4, 195 (1980).
  77. R. Núñez, Conceptual metaphor, human cognition, and the nature of mathematics, in The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, 1st ed., edited by R. W. Gibbs, Jr. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 2008), pp. 339–362.
  78. L. Boroditsky, Metaphoric structuring: Understanding time through spatial metaphors, Cognition 75, 1 (2000).
  79. K. E. Moore, Space-to-time mappings and temporal concepts, Cognit. Linguist. 17, 199 (2006).
  80. N. Yu, The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor: A Perspective from Chinese (John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1998), Vol. 1.
  81. D. Casasanto and K. Jasmin, The hands of time: Temporal gestures in English speakers, Cognit. Linguist. 23, 643 (2012).
  82. A. Kendon, How gestures can become like words, in Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Nonverbal Communication (Hogrefe & Huber Publishers, Ashland, OH, 1988), pp. 131–141.
  83. E. Ochs, S. Jacoby, and P. Gonzales, Interpretive journeys: How physicists talk and travel through graphic space, Configurations 2, 151 (1994).
  84. E. Ochs, P. Gonzales, and S. Jacoby, “When I Come Down I’m in the Domain State”: Grammar and graphic representation in the interpretive activity of physicists, in Interaction and Grammar, edited by E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff, and S. A. Thompson, 1st ed. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1996), pp. 328–369.
  85. B. W. Dreyfus, A. Gupta, and E. F. Redish, Applying conceptual blending to model coordinated use of multiple ontological metaphors, Int. J. Sci. Educ. 37, 812 (2015).
  86. S. Hwang and W.-M. Roth, The (embodied) performance of physics concepts in lectures, Res. Sci. Educ. 41, 461 (2011).
  87. M. Singer, The function of gesture in mathematical, and scientific discourse in the classroom, in Gesture Studies, edited by R. B. Church, M. W. Alibali, and S. D. Kelly (John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 2017), Vol. 7, pp. 317–329.
  88. M. Zhu, E. T. Booth, V. J. Flood, and B. W. Harrer, Physics students’ metaphorical gestures about energy, in Proceedings of the 19th International Conference of the Learning Sciences—ICLS, edited by A. Rajala, A. Cortez, R. Hofmann, A. Jornet, H. Lotz-Sisitka, and L. Markauskaite (International Society of the Learning Sciences, 2025), pp. 962–970, 10.22318/icls2025.374764.
  89. M. W. Alibali and S. Kita, Gesture highlights perceptually present information for speakers, Gesture 10, 3 (2010).
  90. V. J. Flood, B. W. Harrer, and D. Abrahamson, The interactional work of configuring a mathematical object in a technology-enabled embodied learning environment, in Transforming Learning, Empowering Learners: The International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS), 2016, edited by C. K. Looi, J. L. Polman, U. Cress, and P. Reimann (International Society of the Learning Sciences, Singapore, 2016), Vol. 1, https://repository.isls.org/handle/1/107.
  91. E. M. Crowder, Gestures at work in sense-making science talk, J. Learn. Sci. 5, 173 (1996).
  92. S. Gerofsky, Mathematical learning and gesture: Character viewpoint and observer viewpoint in students’ gestured graphs of functions, Gesture 10, 321 (2010).
  93. D. DeLiema and F. Steen, Thinking with the body: Conceptual integration through gesture in multiviewpoint model construction, in Language and the Creative Mind (CSLI Publications, Standford, CA, 2013).
  94. M. W. Alibali, M. J. Nathan, M. S. Wolfgram, R. B. Church, S. A. Jacobs, C. Johnson Martinez, and E. J. Knuth, How teachers link ideas in mathematics instruction using speech and gesture: A corpus analysis, Cognit. Instr. 32, 65 (2014).
  95. R. Lindgren, R. C. Wallon, D. E. Brown, N. Mathayas, and N. Kimball, “Show me” what you mean: Learning and design implications of eliciting gesture in student explanations, in Transforming Learning, Empowering Learners: The International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS), edited by C. K. Looi, J. L. Polman, U. Cress, and P. Reimann (International Society of the Learning Sciences, Singapore, 2016), Vol. 2, pp. 1014–1017, https://repository.isls.org/handle/1/367.
  96. R. E. Scherr, H. G. Close, E. W. Close, V. J. Flood, S. B. McKagan, A. D. Robertson, L. Seeley, M. C. Wittmann, and S. Vokos, Negotiating energy dynamics through embodied action in a materially structured environment, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 020105 (2013).
  97. M. Varelas, C. C. Pappas, E. Tucker-Raymond, J. Kane, J. Hankes, I. Ortiz, and N. Keblawe-Shamah, Drama activities as ideational resources for primary-grade children in urban science classrooms, J. Res. Sci. Teach. 47, 302 (2010).
  98. M. Vickery, J. Danish, X. Tu, and M. Zhou, Scientific modeling practices through perspective taking in a mixed reality embodied learning environment, in Proceedings of the 15th International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Bochum, Germany, edited by E. De Vries, Y. Hod, and J. Ahn (International Society of the Learning Sciences, Bochum, Germany, 2021), pp. 765–768, https://repository.isls.org//handle/1/7578.
  99. D. Keifert and R. Stevens, Inquiry as a members’ phenomenon: Young children as competent inquirers, J. Learn. Sci. 28, 240 (2019).
  100. R. Nemirovsky and F. Ferrara, Mathematical imagination and embodied cognition, Educ. Stud. Math. 70, 159 (2009).
  101. E. Hutchins and L. Palen, Constructing meaning from space, gesture, and speech, in Discourse, Tools and Reasoning, edited by L. B. Resnick, R. Säljö, C. Pontecorvo, and B. Burge (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 1997), pp. 23–40.
  102. K. M. Murphy, Collaborative imagining: The interactive use of gestures, talk, and graphic representation in architectural practice, Semiotica 2005, 113 (2005).
  103. F. Alby and C. Zucchermaglio, Embodiment at the interface: Materialization practices in web design, Res. Lang. Soc. Interact. 40, 255 (2007).
  104. K. M. Murphy, Imagination as joint activity: The case of architectural interaction, Mind Cult. Act. 11, 267 (2004).
  105. A. Nishizaka, Imagination in action, Theory Psychol. 13, 177 (2003).
  106. R. Steier, M. Kersting, and K. Silseth, Imagining with improvised representations in CSCL environments, Int. J. Comput.-Support. Collab. Learn. 14, 109 (2019).
  107. D. Keifert and R. Stevens, Inquiry as a members’ phenomenon: Young children as competent inquirers, J. Learn. Sci. 28, 240 (2019).
  108. V. J. Flood, F. G. Amar, R. Nemirovsky, B. W. Harrer, M. R. M. Bruce, and M. C. Wittmann, Paying attention to gesture when students talk chemistry: Interactional resources for responsive teaching, J. Chem. Educ. 92, 11 (2015).
  109. R. Steier and M. Kersting, Metaimagining and embodied conceptions of spacetime, Cognit. Instr. 37, 145 (2019).
  110. R. B. Kozma and J. Russell, Multimedia and understanding: Expert and novice responses to different representations of chemical phenomena, J. Res. Sci. Teach. 34, 949 (1997).
  111. K. L. Daniel, C. J. Bucklin, E. Austin Leone, and J. Idema, Towards a definition of representational competence, in Towards a Framework for Representational Competence in Science Education, edited by K. L. Daniel (Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2018), Vol. 11, pp. 3–11.
  112. K. L. Halverson and P. Friedrichsen, Learning tree thinking: Developing a new framework of representational competence, in Multiple Representations in Biological Education, edited by D. F. Treagust and C.-Y. Tsui (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2013), Vol. 7, pp. 185–201.
  113. R. Kozma, E. Chin, J. Russell, and N. Marx, The roles of representations and tools in the chemistry laboratory and their implications for chemistry learning, J. Learn. Sci. 9, 105 (2000).
  114. R. Kozma and J. Russell, Students becoming chemists: Developing representational competence, in Visualization in Science Education, edited by J. K. Gilbert (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2005), pp. 121–145.
  115. H. Wu, J. S. Krajcik, and E. Soloway, Promoting understanding of chemical representations: Students’ use of a visualization tool in the classroom, J. Res. Sci. Teach. 38, 821 (2001).
  116. A. A. diSessa, D. Hammer, B. Sherin, and T. Kolpakowki, Inventing graphing: Meta-representational expertise in children, J. Math. Behav. 10, 117 (1991), https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ443633.
  117. F. S. Azevedo, Designing representations of terrain: A study in meta-representational competence, J. Math. Behav. 19, 443 (2000).
  118. J. A. Danish and N. Enyedy, Negotiated representational mediators: How young children decide what to include in their science representations, Sci. Educ. 91, 1 (2007).
  119. A. A. diSessa and B. L. Sherin, Meta-representation: An introduction, J. Math. Behav. 19, 385 (2000).
  120. A. A. diSessa, Metarepresentation: Native competence and targets for instruction, Cognit. Instr. 22, 293 (2004).
  121. M. Stieff and M. McCombs, Increasing representational fluency with visualization tools, in Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Learning Sciences, edited by S. A. Barab, K. E. Hay, and D. T. Hickey (International Society of the Learning Sciences, Bloomington, Indiana, 2006), Vol. 2, pp. 730–736, https://repository.isls.org//handle/1/3583.
  122. M. Stieff, M. E. Lira, and S. A. Scopelitis, Gesture supports spatial thinking in STEM, Cognit. Instr. 34, 80 (2016).
  123. E. A. Schegloff, On some gestures’ relation to talk, in Structures of Social Action, 1st ed., edited by J. M. Atkinson (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1985), pp. 266–296.
  124. C. Piñón, Achievements in an event semantics, Semant. Linguist. Theory 7, 276 (1997).
  125. H. J. Verkuyl, Aspectual classes and aspectual composition, Linguist. Philos. 12, 39 (1989).
  126. F. Vlach, Temporal adverbials, tenses and the perfect, Linguist. Philos. 16, 231 (1993).
  127. M. B. Miles and A. M. Huberman, Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook, 2nd ed. (Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1994).
  128. J. R. Landis and G. G. Koch, The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data, Biometrics 33, 159 (1977).
  129. M. J. Nathan and M. W. Alibali, Chapter 19. How gesture use enables intersubjectivity in the classroom, in Gesture Studies, edited by G. Stam and M. Ishino (John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 2011), pp. 257–266.
  130. G. Woodin, B. Winter, M. Perlman, J. Littlemore, and T. Matlock, “Tiny numbers” are actually tiny: Evidence from gestures in the TV news archive, PLoS One 15, e0242142 (2020).
  131. A. A. diSessa, Toward an epistemology of physics, Cognit. Instr. 10, 105 (1993).
  132. D. Hammer and A. Elby, Tapping epistemological resources for learning physics, J. Learn. Sci. 12, 53 (2003).
  133. V. J. Flood and B. W. Harrer, Kinetically-held questions: Representational gesture post-stroke holds in whole-class interactions in STEM, Linguist. Educ. 75, 101164 (2023).
  134. F. Parrill, B. K. Bergen, and P. V. Lichtenstein, Grammatical aspect, gesture, and conceptualization: Using co-speech gesture to reveal event representations, Cognit. Linguist. 24, 135 (2013).
  135. K. Cooperrider and R. Núñez, Across time, across the body: Transversal temporal gestures, Gesture 9, 181 (2009).
  136. E. De Freitas and N. Sinclair, Diagram, gesture, agency: Theorizing embodiment in the mathematics classroom, Educ. Stud. Math. 80, 133 (2012).
  137. C. Zirek, V. J. Flood, and B. W. Harrer, Laminated layers of abstraction in physics students’ gesture, in Proceedings of the 18th International Conference of the Learning Sciences - ICLS 2024, edited by R. Lindgren, T. I. Asino, E. A. Kyza, C. K. Looi, D. T., Keifert, and E. Suárez (International Society of the Learning Sciences, 2024), pp. 1814–1817, 10.22318/icls2024.200841.
  138. M. E. Lira and M. Stieff, Using gesture analysis to assess students’ developing representational competence, in Towards a Framework for Representational Competence in Science Education, edited by K. L. Daniel (Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2018), Vol. 11, pp. 205–228.
  139. B. Tversky, S. Kugelmass, and A. Winter, Cross-cultural and developmental trends in graphic productions, Cognit. Psychol. 23, 515 (1991).
  140. D. Casasanto and R. Bottini, Can mirror-reading reverse the flow of time? in Spatial Cognition VII, edited by C. Hölscher, T. F. Shipley, M. Olivetti Belardinelli, J. A. Bateman, and N. S. Newcombe (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010), Vol. 6222, pp. 335–345.
  141. O. Fuhrman and L. Boroditsky, Cross-cultural differences in mental representations of time: Evidence from an implicit nonlinguistic task, Cognit. Sci. 34, 1430 (2010).
  142. T. Ingold, Lines: A Brief History (Routledge, London; New York, 2007).
  143. E. T. Booth, V. J. Flood, and B. W. Harrer, The enactment of an instant: A study of gesture in introductory physics, in Proceedings of the 18th International Conference of the Learning Sciences – ICLS 2024, edited by R. Lindgren, T. I. Asino, E. A. Kyza, C. K. Looi, D. T. Keifert, and E. Suárez (International Society of the Learning Sciences, 2024), pp. 1590–1593, 10.22318/icls2024.490612.

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 21, 020136– Published 27 October, 2025
  • Received 14 May 2025
  • Accepted 8 August 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation