Fill in this form to receive a download link:
A number of studies from the last decades have demonstrated that the iconic gestures are shaped not only by our mental imagery but also, quite strongly, by structural properties of the accompanying speech. These findings are problematic for the central assumption in the Sketch Model (De Ruiter, 2000) about the function of representational gesture. I suggest a seemingly small but fundamental modification to the processing assumptions in the Sketch Model that not only accommodates the discussed empirical findings, but also explains many other well-known gesture phenomena. The new model also generates new and testable predictions regarding the relationship between gesture and speech.