Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Inclusion of gesture – meaningful movements of the hands –during mathematics instruction is beneficial for teachingnaïve learners novel concepts, and it can affect a learner’sallocation of visual attention. Yet, it is unknown how childrenwith pre-existing knowledge of a math concept approachinstruction that includes gesture. Here, we examine howchildren’s prior knowledge and either the presence or absenceof gesture during instruction drive patterns in visual attentionduring a lesson. We find that prior knowledge does determinevisual attention patterns, independent of type of instruction(i.e. with or without gesture). These findings further ourunderstanding of the attentional mechanisms of gesture andhave implications for real-world classrooms, where levels ofprior knowledge are often mixed.