Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Cognition. 2018 Jun;175:77-95. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.01.015. Epub 2018 Mar 16.
During conversation, there is often little gap between interlocutors' utterances. In two pairs of experiments, we manipulated the content predictability of yes/no questions to investigate whether listeners achieve such coordination by (i) preparing a response as early as possible or (ii) predicting the end of the speaker's turn. To assess these two mechanisms, we varied the participants' task: They either pressed a button when they thought the question was about to end (Experiments 1a and 2a), or verbally answered the questions with either yes or no (Experiments 1b and 2b). Predictability effects were present when participants had to prepare a verbal response, but not when they had to predict the turn-end. These findings suggest content prediction facilitates turn-taking because it allows listeners to prepare their own response early, rather than because it helps them predict when the speaker will reach the end of their turn.
在对话中，说话者之间的话语之间通常没有什么间隔。在两项实验中，我们操纵了是/否问题的内容可预测性，以研究听众是否通过以下两种机制实现了这种协调：（i）尽早准备回答，或（ii）预测说话者的话语结束。为了评估这两种机制，我们改变了参与者的任务：他们要么在认为问题即将结束时按下按钮（实验 1a 和 2a），要么用是或否口头回答问题（实验 1b 和 2b）。当参与者必须准备口头回答时，可预测性效应存在，但当他们必须预测话语结束时，可预测性效应不存在。这些发现表明，内容预测有助于轮流发言，因为它允许听众尽早准备自己的回答，而不是因为它帮助他们预测说话者何时会结束他们的发言。
