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SUMMARY:The anticipation of the end of the current speaker's turn in conve
 rsation - Jan de Ruiter (Bielefeld University)
DTSTART:20120306T160000Z
DTEND:20120306T180000Z
UID:TALK36209@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Napoleon Katsos
DESCRIPTION:*Abstract*\n\nListeners in a conversation need not only proces
 s the content of speakers' utterances and prepare responses\, but they als
 o need to anticipate the moment in time that speakers finish their turn\, 
 allowing them (the listener) to start their own contribution right on time
 . \n\nBut how are listeners able to be so accurate in projecting the end o
 f a speaker's turn? What information do they use? Some authors have sugges
 ted that syntactic information provides the main cue\, while others have a
 rgued that the intonational contour (F0\, melody) is the listener's main s
 ource of information for accurate 'projection'.\n\nIn my talk\, I will des
 cribe an on-line experiment in which we tested these hypotheses by indepen
 dently manipulating the presence of lexico-syntactic content and the inton
 ational contour of utterances. Importantly\, these recordings were culled 
 from natural conversations. \n\nWhen hearing the original recordings\, sub
 jects could indeed anticipate turn endings with the same high degree of ac
 curacy found in real conversations. When we entirely removed the intonatio
 nal contour from the utterances (leaving words and syntax intact)\, there 
 was no change in subjects' accuracy of end-of-turn projection - they were 
 just as accurate as with the original recordings. But when we made the wor
 ds unrecognizable\, while leaving intonational contour intact\, subjects' 
 performance deteriorated significantly. These results establish that the l
 exico/syntactic content of an utterance is necessary (and possibly even su
 fficient) for projecting the moment of its completion\, and thus for regul
 ating conversational turn-taking. By contrast\, and perhaps surprisingly\,
  intonational contour is neither necessary nor sufficient for end-of-turn 
 projection.\n
LOCATION:GR-06/07\, English Faculty Building
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