Dr Judith Holler

Photograph of Judith Holler

Lecturer

Email: judith.holler@manchester.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)161 275 2688

Coupland Building 1
School of Psychological Sciences
University of Manchester
Manchester M13 9PL
UK

Lecturer in Language & Communication (Assistant Professor)
Postgraduate Trainer (School of Psychological Sciences)

International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS) (Secretary General)

My research focuses on co-speech gestures, which speakers produce spontaneously and frequently during everyday talk. I am interested in the role these hand movements play in talk, how they are involved in the communication of semantic information, how they interact with speech and what conversational functions they fulfil. I am currently particularly interested in how co-speech gesture use is influenced by social, conversational and interactional processes and how these processes influence the their comprehension.

Undergraduate teaching

PSYC20042 Language & Communication

PSYC30512 Gesture

PSYC20901 2nd year Academic Supervision

PSYC30920 3rd year Research Projects Supervision

Postgraduate teaching

PSYC60012 Advanced General Methods: Working with Verbal and Nonverbal Data

PSYC60500 MRes Research Projects Supervision

PhD student supervision

I obtained my doctoral degree from the University of Manchester in 2004. My thesis focused on the semantic interaction of iconic gesture and speech and the uses and functions of gestures in talk. I started my position as a full-time lecturer at the University of Manchester in 2004.

I have recently been awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship for a two year project on the perceived communicativeness of actions and co-speech gestures, and their comprehension in the context of spoken language. This project will take place at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands and is a collaboration with Asli Ozyurek (MPI), Spencer Kelly (Colgate Unversity, USA) and Peter Hagoort (MPI).

2010

Holler, J. (2010). Speakers’ use of interactive gestures as markers of common ground. Presented at 8th International Gesture Workshop, GW 2009. Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld, Germany: Springer.

2009

Holler J, Shovelton HK, Beattie GW. (2009). Do iconic hand gestures really contribute to the communication of semantic information in a face-to-face context? Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 33, 73-88. Full text doi:10.1007/s10919-008-0063-9
Holler J, Wilkin KKJ. (2009). Communicating common ground: how mutually shared knowledge influences speech and gesture in a narrative task. Language & Cognitive Processes, 24, 145-167. Full text doi:10.1080/01690960802095545
Kidd EJ, Holler J. (2009). Children's use of gesture to resolve lexical ambiguity. Developmental Science, 12, 903-913.

2007

Holler J, Beattie GW. (2007). Gesture use in social interaction: how speakers' gestures can reflect listeners' thinking.
Holler J, Stevens R. (2007). The effect of common ground on how speakers use gesture and speech to represent size information. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 26, Full text doi:10.1177/0261927X06296428
Stewart AJ, Holler J, Kidd EJ. (2007). Shallow processing of ambiguous pronouns: evidence for delay. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60, 1680-1696. Full text doi:10.1080/17470210601160807

2006

Holler J. (2006). How speakers represent size information for knowing and unknowing recipients in referential communication.

2004

Holler J, Beattie GW. (2004). The interaction of iconic gesture and speech in talk. Springer Verlag.

2003

Holler J, Beattie GW. (2003). How iconic gestures and speech interact in the representation of meaning: are both aspects really integral to the process? Semiotica, 146, 81-116. Full text doi:10.1515/semi.2003.083
Holler J, Beattie GW. (2003). Pragmatic aspects of representational gestures: do speakers use them to clarify verbal ambiguity for the listener? Gesture, 3, 127-154.

2002

Holler J, Beattie GW. (2002). A micro-analytic investigation of how iconic gesture and speech represent core semantic features in talk. Semiotica, 142, 31-69. Full text doi:10.1515/semi.2002.077