Disturbed visual exploration of communicative gestures in aphasic patients: Evidence from eye movement analysis

Gestures are a crucial component of human non-verbal communication (Birdwhistell, 1970). Aphasic patients may display deficits in recognizing and producing gestures, preventing them from a successful use in communication (Hogrefe et al., 2012). The present study aimed to examine the perception of communicative and meaningless gestures in aphasic patients by means of eye movement analysis. Eighteen patients with aphasia and twenty healthy control participants took part in the study. Their visual exploration behavior was measured during the presentation of forty