Grasping new pronunciation

In the remarkable study by Symes of Plymouth University and colleagues reported in Science Daily, it was demonstrated that " . . . using a grabbing action with our hands can help our processing of visual information." In essence, by performing that hand movement, in preparation for touching a fruit of various sizes, features of a picture were more quickly recognized--assuming that the hand position reflected the shape of the object to be viewed.

The EHIEP vowel protocol uses a set of analogous gestures that simulate the felt sense, including duration of the vowel to be anchored (spoken as the hands touch). As one hand approaches the other it assumes a different configuration, depending on the type of vowel to be articulated. The visual image that is associated with the anchor may be written, appearing in the visual field, or visualized--as a dictionary entry or phonetic transcription of a word.

Whether or not the same "grabbing" principle applies to auditory or somatic images is not mentioned in the research report, but from what we know of the relation between haptic, auditory and visual, one would assume that the effect would be even more "pronounced" with auditory input. Regardless, it points to but another possible explanation for the "gripping" nature of EHIEP!