Sjerps Matthias J, Meyer Antje S
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, P.O. Box 310, 6500 AH Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Centre for Cognition, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Department of Linguistics, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA.
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, P.O. Box 310, 6500 AH Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Centre for Cognition, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Cognition. 2015 Mar;136:304-24. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2014.10.008. Epub 2014 Dec 15.
The smooth transitions between turns in natural conversation suggest that speakers often begin to plan their utterances while listening to their interlocutor. The presented study investigates whether this is indeed the case and, if so, when utterance planning begins. Two hypotheses were contrasted: that speakers begin to plan their turn as soon as possible (in our experiments less than a second after the onset of the interlocutor's turn), or that they do so close to the end of the interlocutor's turn. Turn-taking was combined with a finger tapping task to measure variations in cognitive load. We assumed that the onset of speech planning in addition to listening would be accompanied by deterioration in tapping performance. Two picture description experiments were conducted. In both experiments there were three conditions: (1) Tapping and Speaking, where participants tapped a complex pattern while taking over turns from a pre-recorded speaker, (2) Tapping and Listening, where participants carried out the tapping task while overhearing two pre-recorded speakers, and (3) Speaking Only, where participants took over turns as in the Tapping and Speaking condition but without tapping. The experiments differed in the amount of tapping training the participants received at the beginning of the session. In Experiment 2, the participants' eye-movements were recorded in addition to their speech and tapping. Analyses of the participants' tapping performance and eye movements showed that they initiated the cognitively demanding aspects of speech planning only shortly before the end of the turn of the preceding speaker. We argue that this is a smart planning strategy, which may be the speakers' default in many everyday situations.
自然对话中话语转换的流畅性表明，说话者在倾听对方讲话时往往就开始规划自己要说的内容了。本研究旨在探究情况是否确实如此，如果是，话语规划何时开始。我们对比了两种假设：一种是说话者会尽快开始规划自己的话轮（在我们的实验中，是在对方话轮开始后不到一秒的时间），另一种是他们在对方话轮接近结束时才开始规划。话轮转换与一项手指敲击任务相结合，以测量认知负荷的变化。我们假设，除了倾听之外，开始进行言语规划会伴随着敲击表现的下降。我们进行了两项图片描述实验。在这两项实验中，都有三种条件：（1）敲击与说话，即参与者在从预先录制的说话者那里接过话轮时敲击一个复杂的图案；（2）敲击与倾听，即参与者在偷听两个预先录制的说话者讲话时执行敲击任务；（3）仅说话，即参与者像在“敲击与说话”条件下那样接过话轮，但不进行敲击。两项实验的不同之处在于参与者在实验开始时接受的敲击训练量。在实验2中，除了言语和敲击外，还记录了参与者的眼动情况。对参与者敲击表现和眼动的分析表明，他们仅在前一个说话者话轮接近结束时才开始启动言语规划中认知要求较高的部分。我们认为这是一种明智的规划策略，在许多日常情况下可能是说话者的默认方式。
