A new study has revealed that young children instinctively use a "language-like" structure to communicate through gestures.
The research, led by the University of Warwick, showed that when young children are asked to use gestures to communicate, their gestures segment information and reorganize it into language-like sequences.
This finding suggests that children are not just learning language from older generations - their own preferences in communication may have shaped how languages look today.
Sotaro Kita from Warwick's Department of Psychology led the study with Zanna Clay at the University of Neuchatel, Sally Pople at the Royal Hampshire Hospital, and Bruce Hood at the University of Bristol.
The research team examined how 4-year-olds, 12-year-olds, and adults used gestures to communicate in the absence of speech.
The aim of the study was to investigate whether, when gesturing, the participants chose to break down complex information into simpler concepts.
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Doing so would be similar to the way we typically express complex information using language, breaking it down into units (such as words) to express simpler concepts and then stringing those units together into a phrase or sentence.
The researchers suggest the study provides insight into why languages of the world have universal properties.
The research is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.