TY - JOUR A1 - O'Madagain, Cathal A1 - Kachel, Gregor A1 - Strickland, Brent T1 - The origin of pointing T2 - Science Advances N2 - Pointing gestures play a foundational role in human language, but up to now, we have not known where these gestures come from. Here, we investigated the hypothesis that pointing originates in touch. We found, first, that when pointing at a target, children and adults oriented their fingers not as though trying to create an “arrow” that picks out the target but instead as though they were aiming to touch it; second, that when pointing at a target at an angle, participants rotated their wrists to match that angle as they would if they were trying to touch the target; and last, that young children interpret pointing gestures as if they were attempts to touch things, not as arrows. These results provide the first substantial evidence that pointing originates in touch. Y1 - 2022 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-fhpotsdam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2611 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:525-26110 SN - 2375-2548 VL - 5 IS - 7 PB - American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) CY - Washington ER -