Elizabeth Wakefield

Associate Professor

Graduate Program Director - Developmental

Education

Post-Doc: University of Chicago
Ph.D.:  Indiana University
B.A.:  Kalamazoo College

Research Interests

In my research program, I focus on how movements we produce and observe every day have the power to help us learn. In particular, I am interested in gestures, movements of the hands that naturally occur with spoken language and can represent information though their form and trajectory. Gesture is commonly used in the classroom, but it is not clear how to optimally exploit it as a teaching tool. Employing behavioral methods and eye tracking, I address this knowledge gap and lay the groundwork for creating evidence-based teaching practices using gesture. My research touches on many learning domains – mathematics, language, spatial and analogical reasoning, and music, and addresses two overarching questions: (1) What mechanisms underlie gesture’s ability to impact learning and promote cognitive change? (2) What individual differences contribute to whether gesture will benefit a learner?

Courses Taught

NEUR 101 Introduction to Neuroscience
PSYC 273 Developmental Psychology
PSYC 377 Psychology of Music
PSYC 545 Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

Publications/Research Listings

Wakefield, E. M., Novack., M. N., Congdon, E. L., & Howard, L. (2021). Individual differences in gesture interpretation predict children’s propensity to pick a gesturer as a good informant. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 205. Article 105069. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.105069

Guarino, K. F., Wakefield, E. M., Morrison, R. G., & Richland, L. E. (2021). Exploring how visual attention, inhibitory control, and co-speech gesture instruction contribute to children’s analogical reasoning ability. Cognitive Development, 58. Article 101040. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2021.101040

Wakefield, E. M., Congdon, E., L., Novack, M. A., Goldin-Meadow, S., James, K. H. (2019). Learning math by hand: The neural effects of gesture-based instruction in 8-year-old children. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 81, 2343–2353. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-019-01755-y

Wakefield, E. M., Foley, A. E., Ping, R., Villarreal, J., Goldin-Meadow, S., & Levine, S. (2019). Breaking down gesture and action in mental rotation: Understanding the components of movement that promote learning. Developmental Psychology, 55(5), 981- 993. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000697

Wakefield, E. M., Novack, M. A., Congdon, E. L., Franconeri, S., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2018). Gesture helps learners learn, but not merely by guiding their visual attention. Developmental Science. Article e12664. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12664

Wakefield, E. M., Hall, C., James, K. H., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2018). Gesture for generalization: Gesture facilitates flexible learning of words for actions on objects. Developmental Science. Article e12656. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12656

Wakefield, E. M., Novack, M. A., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2018). Unpacking the ontogeny of gesture understanding: How movement becomes meaningful across development. Child Development, 89(3), e245-e260. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12817

Novack, M., Wakefield, E. M., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2016). What makes a movement a gesture? Cognition, 146, 339-348. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.10.014

Wakefield, E. M., James, T. W., & James, K. H. (2013). Neural correlates of gesture processing across human development. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 30(2), 58-76. https://doi.org/10.1080/02643294.2013.794777