Predicting turn-ends in discourse context

Corps, R, Pickering, M and Gambi, Chiara ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1568-7779 2019. Predicting turn-ends in discourse context. Language Cognition and Neuroscience 34 (5) , pp. 615-627. 10.1080/23273798.2018.1552008

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Abstract

Research suggests that during conversation, interlocutors coordinate their utterances by predicting the speaker’s forthcoming utterance and its end. In two experiments, we used a button-pressing task, in which participants pressed a button when they thought a speaker reached the end of their utterance, to investigate what role the wider discourse plays in turn-end prediction. Participants heard two-utterance sequences, in which the content of the second utterance was or was not constrained by the content of the first. In both experiments, participants responded earlier, but not more precisely, when the first utterance was constraining rather than unconstraining. Response times and precision were unaffected by whether they listened to dialogues or monologues (Experiment 1) and by whether they read the first utterance out loud or silently (Experiment 2), providing no indication that activation of production mechanisms facilitates prediction. We suggest that content predictions aid comprehension but not turn-end prediction.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
ISSN:	2327-3798
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	20 November 2018
Date of Acceptance:	15 November 2018
Last Modified:	11 Oct 2023 19:37
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/116941

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