Does restricting hand gestures impair mathematical reasoning?

Gestures are associated with powerful forms of understanding; however, their causative role in mathematics reasoning is less clear. We inhibit college students' gestures by restraining their hands, and examine the impact on language, recall, intuition, and mathematical justifications of geometric conjectures. We test four mutually exclusive hypotheses: (1) gestures are facilitative, through cognitive off-loading, verbal support, or transduction,...