Abstract
For addressees to respond in a timely fashion, they cannot simply process the speaker's utterance as it occurs and wait till it finishes. Instead, they predict both when the speaker will conclude and what linguistic forms will be used. While doing this, they must also prepare their own response. To explain this, we draw on the account proposed by Pickering and Garrod (2013a), in which addressees covertly imitate the speaker's utterance and use this to determine the intention that underlies their upcoming utterance. They use this intention to predict when and how the utterance will end, and also to drive their own production mechanisms for preparing their response. Following Arnal and Giraud (2012), we distinguish between mechanisms that predict timing and content. In particular, we propose that the timing mechanism relies on entrainment of low-frequency oscillations between speech envelope and brain. This constrains the context that feeds into the determination of the speaker's intention and hence the timing and form of the upcoming utterance. This approach typically leads to well-timed contributions, but also provides a mechanism for resolving conflicts, for example when there is unintended speaker overlap.
Highlights
How is it possible for most conversations to be so fluent and efficient? Interlocutors tend to respond coherently and appropriately to each other
As our focus is on turn-transition, we consider prediction of remaining content and precise timing. We show how these predictions feed into the content and timing of the response itself
We have shown how content can be combined with timing to predict the end of the interlocutor’s turn and determine the appropriate moment to speak
Summary
For addressees to respond in a timely fashion, they cannot process the speaker’s utterance as it occurs and wait till it finishes Instead, they predict both when the speaker will conclude and what linguistic forms will be used. We draw on the account proposed by Pickering and Garrod (2013a), in which addressees covertly imitate the speaker’s utterance and use this to determine the intention that underlies their upcoming utterance They use this intention to predict when and how the utterance will end, and to drive their own production mechanisms for preparing their response. We propose that the timing mechanism relies on entrainment of low-frequency oscillations between speech envelope and brain This constrains the context that feeds into the determination of the speaker’s intention and the timing and form of the upcoming utterance. This approach typically leads to well-timed contributions, and provides a mechanism for resolving conflicts, for example when there is unintended speaker overlap
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