Turn-taking System Research Articles

Achieving Preallocation: Turn Transition Practices in Board Games

ABSTRACT This paper contributes an analysis of practices for managing a preallocated turn-taking system in board games, expanding existing studies of preallocation beyond question-answer sequences. Although board games have existed for thousands of years across human cultures, and despite being a widely used method of data elicitation in many fields of research, there are few studies of how adults accomplish play. Using conversation analysis, this paper demonstrates how participants organize transition between board-game turns, finding that participants treat the game turns as analogous to the organization of pre- and post-possible completion. However, the preallocated nature of game turns results in alternate sense making concerning delays and overlap, especially where such occurrences threaten the achievement of the activity. Data are in English.

An Analysis of Conversational Structure in Physiotherapist's Medical Consultation at YARSI Padang Panjang

This research aims to find elements of conversational structures that happen between physiotherapist and his patients at YARSI Padang Panjang when doing medical consultation. This research uses descriptive method to conduct the research. Data of this research are the transcription of recorded conversation that happens during therapy process. The participants who act as the subject of the study and became the source of the data are physiotherapist and his patients at YARSI Padang Panjang.Total patients who do therapy treatment with therapist are 20 patients. From 20 patients, seven of them are new patients, and thirteen of them are regular patients. This research uses Goutsos (2005) theory to analyze elements in global structure of conversation. Meanwhile, Stenstrom (1994) theory uses to analyze the elements of turn-taking systems in local structure of conversation. Result of this research shows that the conversation that happens between physiotherapist and his patients is structured and organized. In global structure section, it is found that every conversation has the elements of opening, body, and closing even though not all elements found in each section. Then, in turn-taking systems case, it is found that three strategies in turn-taking systems found in the research. They are turn-yielding strategy, taking the turn strategy, and turn-holding strategy.

Human-human-computer triads in institutional encounters

This paper presents an analysis of human-human-computer triads (HHC triads) in institutional settings, more specifically of the way in which advisor, customer and computer cooperatively generate the maximum loan amount in mortgage orientation consultations (MOCs). HHC triads involve a participation framework in which three actors collaborate in order to fulfill a specific consultation goal. We argue that the computer, despite its restricted interactional repertoire, is a full participant in this framework, considered in terms of the turn-taking system. First, we will focus on the global organization of HHC triads, on how these triads emerge in the course of institutional interactions and how they are closed. Second, we analyze the interactional dynamics of HHC triads in the MOC. We demonstrate how turn-taking rules apply, how turn-taking is managed by the participants and how the participants, including the computer, collaborate to perform a task. In the final section we will describe the local sequential structure of HHC triads and identify the actions of the participants, including the computer. The use of HHC-triads not only facilitates easy transitions for the advisors between activities in the consultation, it also cleverly combines the advisor's computer use and customer-centeredness. As the computer becomes an actual “participant” in this institutional goal-oriented participation framework, both advisors and customers show that they make use of the interactional affordances the framework creates.

Speech Planning at Turn Transitions in Dialog Is Associated With Increased Processing Load.

Speech planning is a sophisticated process. In dialog, it regularly starts in overlap with an incoming turn by a conversation partner. We show that planning spoken responses in overlap with incoming turns is associated with higher processing load than planning in silence. In a dialogic experiment, participants took turns with a confederate describing lists of objects. The confederate's utterances (to which participants responded) were pre-recorded and varied in whether they ended in a verb or an object noun and whether this ending was predictable or not. We found that response planning in overlap with sentence-final verbs evokes larger task-evoked pupillary responses, while end predictability had no effect. This finding indicates that planning in overlap leads to higher processing load for next speakers in dialog and that next speakers do not proactively modulate the time course of their response planning based on their predictions of turn endings. The turn-taking system exerts pressure on the language processing system by pushing speakers to plan in overlap despite the ensuing increase in processing load.

The Origin of Protoconversation: An Examination of Caregiver Responses to Cry and Speech-Like Vocalizations.

Turn-taking is a universal and fundamental feature of human vocal communication. Through protoconversation, caregivers play a key role for infants in helping them learn the turn-taking system. Infants produce both speech-like vocalizations (i.e., protophones) and cries from birth. Prior research has shown that caregivers take turns with infant protophones. However, no prior research has investigated the timing of caregiver responses to cries. The present work is the first to systematically investigate different temporal patterns of caregiver responses to protophones and to cries. Results showed that, even in infants' first 3 months of life, caregivers were more likely to take turns with protophones and to overlap with cries. The study provides evidence that caregivers are intuitively aware that protophones and cries are functionally different: protophones are treated as precursors to speech, whereas cries are treated as expressions of distress.

Taking turns: bridging the gap between human and animal communication.

Language, humans’ most distinctive trait, still remains a ‘mystery’ for evolutionary theory. It is underpinned by a universal infrastructure—cooperative turn-taking—which has been suggested as an ancient mechanism bridging the existing gap between the articulate human species and their inarticulate primate cousins. However, we know remarkably little about turn-taking systems of non-human animals, and methodological confounds have often prevented meaningful cross-species comparisons. Thus, the extent to which cooperative turn-taking is uniquely human or represents a homologous and/or analogous trait is currently unknown. The present paper draws attention to this promising research avenue by providing an overview of the state of the art of turn-taking in four animal taxa—birds, mammals, insects and anurans. It concludes with a new comparative framework to spur more research into this research domain and to test which elements of the human turn-taking system are shared across species and taxa.

Questioning in court: The construction of direct examinations

While courtroom examinations are often recognized as a distinct speech-exchange system, little is known about how participants do an examination beyond its unique turn-taking system. This article attempts to shed some light on this issue by studying the question design during the direct examination in an American criminal court case using Conversation Analysis. It shows that attorneys use different question forms compared to casual conversation: declaratives are far less prevalent and questions are often designed as requests for action. In addition, attorneys make use of forms that are not found in other types of interaction, such as the tag ( is that) correct. The way in which attorneys design their questions additionally shows that the rules of the courtroom have procedural consequences for how the interaction is done. But these rules have to be enacted, and it is in their violation that participants bring about categories such as leading questions.

The Aging Factor in Presupposition Processing

The Aging Factor in Presupposition Processing

Behavioral and Neural Evidence on Pragmatic Processing: A Foreword to XPRAG.it

Behavioral and Neural Evidence on Pragmatic Processing: A Foreword to XPRAG.it

Reclaiming agency in resident–staff interaction: A case study from a Japanese eldercare facility

This article examines the problem of agency in resident–staff interaction in a Japanese eldercare facility. Data were collected during the morning care routines and analysed within the framework of Conversation Analysis. Focusing on the openings and closings, I show that the interactions in the setting under observation are marked by a clear dominance of the care workers. This becomes most obvious at the level of the turn-taking system, where the first pair part of a new sequence is commonly delivered by a care worker, thus assigning a mainly reactive role to the residents. However, the data also contain instances where this pattern is broken up by a reversal of the turn structure. I show how this sequential re-organisation enables a resident to take a more proactive role in determining the relevant next action, arguing that there is much potential for higher resident agency even in routine interactions such as the morning care activities. I also discuss the practical implications of these findings for care communication in general.

Turn-Taking in Colloquial Indonesian

Participants in a conversation follow certain basic rules in obtaining turns. Some questions addressed in this paper are, firstly, how turns are allocated in Indonesian conversation. Secondly, what are the signals given by a current speaker willing to yield to a next speaker (i.e. turn-yielding signals). Thirdly, what repair mechanism is employed by the participants when the turn-taking procedures are broken. The data used in this study were taken from an informal conversation of four Indonesians from Jakarta. The data were collected by using a non-participatory observation with a recording technique. The analysis shows that the turn-taking system in the Indonesian language confirms the model of turn-taking system developed by Sacks et al (1974), covering the occurrence and the recurrence of speaker change, the overwhelming tendency for one party to talk at a time,the common occurrences of more than one speaker at a time, and the common switches of speakers with no gapsand no overlaps.

多人数会話における話者交替再考 : 参与構造とノンバーバル情報を中心に(第13回研究大会ワークショップ)

多人数会話における話者交替再考 : 参与構造とノンバーバル情報を中心に(第13回研究大会ワークショップ)

A table-based turn-taking system and its political consequences

Abstract Turn-taking in political settings faces the problem of how to enable the participation of larger numbers of speakers in orderly ways; solutions have been described as offered by constrained formats like the turn-type pre-allocation system or the mediated turn-taking system. This paper describes another specific solution, a table-based turn-taking system. The study describes how facilitators managing brainstorming sessions in a participatory project exploit the spatial distribution of the citizens around tables scattered in the meeting room. By organizing discussions table by table, rather than selecting next individual speakers, the facilitators select groups and attributes specific rights and obligations to talk to “tables”, which are then treated not as a mere spatial location but as a political entity. The table-based device does not just solve problems of turn-taking management but also fosters the expression of collective opinions of the “table” as a place for building consensus.

Reciprocal greeting in chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ) at the Ngogo community

Abstract Human conversations are organized according to operative sequential features with different components of utterances being related to each other forming so-called adjacency pairings. An adjacency pair is a sequential structure produced by both speakers, consisting of two parts, with the second part being contingent upon and normatively obliged to the first part, such as greeting-greeting exchanges. The present paper investigates such ordered serial utterances in chimpanzee greeting interactions. Results show that reciprocal and structured communicative ‘discourse’ is relatable to the communicative modality that is chosen for greetings as well as to the social bonding between the greeting interactants. The findings of the present study are discussed in relation to the social complexity hypothesis and the current debate on the importance of the turn-taking system for language evolution.

Eye Gaze Behavior at Turn Transition: How Aphasic Patients Process Speakers' Turns during Video Observation.

The human turn-taking system regulates the smooth and precise exchange of speaking turns during face-to-face interaction. Recent studies investigated the processing of ongoing turns during conversation by measuring the eye movements of noninvolved observers. The findings suggest that humans shift their gaze in anticipation to the next speaker before the start of the next turn. Moreover, there is evidence that the ability to timely detect turn transitions mainly relies on the lexico-syntactic content provided by the conversation. Consequently, patients with aphasia, who often experience deficits in both semantic and syntactic processing, might encounter difficulties to detect and timely shift their gaze at turn transitions. To test this assumption, we presented video vignettes of natural conversations to aphasic patients and healthy controls, while their eye movements were measured. The frequency and latency of event-related gaze shifts, with respect to the end of the current turn in the videos, were compared between the two groups. Our results suggest that, compared with healthy controls, aphasic patients have a reduced probability to shift their gaze at turn transitions but do not show significantly increased gaze shift latencies. In healthy controls, but not in aphasic patients, the probability to shift the gaze at turn transition was increased when the video content of the current turn had a higher lexico-syntactic complexity. Furthermore, the results from voxel-based lesion symptom mapping indicate that the association between lexico-syntactic complexity and gaze shift latency in aphasic patients is predicted by brain lesions located in the posterior branch of the left arcuate fasciculus. Higher lexico-syntactic processing demands seem to lead to a reduced gaze shift probability in aphasic patients. This finding may represent missed opportunities for patients to place their contributions during everyday conversation.

Turn-taking in Korean conversation

On the basis of Sacks et al.’s (1974) turn-taking model, I explore the flexibility of the Korean turn-taking system. Noting first that speakers bring a turn to a stop without projected final turn elements, I propose that the turn stop is a legitimate completion specifiable as a transition-relevance place (TRP). I view turn construction as a process of improvisation in which lexical chunks are accumulated one after another to deliver a recognizable action; a TRP is thus constituted at the completion of a lexical chunk loosely tied to a prior lexical chunk. In parallel, a turn stop occurs at a lexical boundary in which the lexical chunks thus far accumulated have conveyed a complete action. I argue that any lexical boundary can serve as a TRP on the condition of action completion, as negotiated and determined by the participants’ shared knowledge and experiences. This flexibility of TRP constitution is proposed as a specification of Sacks et al.’s (1974) generic model applied to Korean conversation.

Editorial: Turn-Taking in Human Communicative Interaction.

One intriguing feature of the human communication system is the interactional infrastructure it builds on. In both dyadic and multi-person interactions, conversation is highly structured and organized according to set principles (Sacks et al., 1974). Human adult interaction is characterized by a mechanism of exchange based on alternating (and relatively short) bursts of information. In the majority of cases, only one person tends to speak at a time and each contribution usually receives a response. What is remarkable is the precise timing of these sequential contributions, resulting in gaps between speaking turns averaging around just 200 ms (Stivers et al., 2009). From psycholinguistic experiments, we know that the time it takes to produce even simple one-word-utterances (min. 600 ms, Indefrey and Levelt, 2004) by far exceeds this average gap duration, hinting at the complexity of the cognitive processes that must be involved (Levinson, 2013). While the behavioral principles governing turn-taking in interaction have been researched for some decades—primarily by scholars of conversation analysis—the cognitive underpinnings of the human turn-taking system have long remained elusive. Recently, psycholinguists have begun to explore the cognitive and neural processes that allow us to deal effectively with the immensely complex task of taking turns on time. Amongst other things, this has highlighted the anticipatory, predictive processes that must be at work, as well as the different layers of processing allowing production planning and comprehension to take place simultaneously (de Ruiter et al., 2006; Magyari and de Ruiter; Bogels et al., 2015). These insights mesh well with the conversation analytic literature that has illuminated the interactional environments in which individual turns are embedded: their sequential organization and the use of conventionalized linguistic constructions allow for the projection of upcoming talk, as well as for the recognition of points of possible completions in the turn which make transition to the next speaker relevant (Sacks et al., 1974; Ford and Thompson, 1996; Schegloff, 2007). The articles in this Research Topic bring together these as yet largely independent lines of research to elucidate our understanding of turn-taking from multiple perspectives and aim to foster future synergies. In addition to exploring the adult psycholinguistic machinery and its workings, researchers have begun to wonder how and when the required cognitive and social processes mature in children, as well as how they compare to those in other species. Levinson (2006) proposed that human beings are inherently social and interactive in orientation. He argues that an “interaction engine” may lie at the heart of children's early predisposition for turn-taking. Likewise, this particular human capacity might explain the strong cultural universals in the structure of human interaction as well as the striking commonalities and differences in communication systems brought about by the course of evolution. The present Research Topic provides a collection of experimental and observational empirical studies using qualitative and quantitative approaches, complemented by articles offering reviews, opinions, and models. They aim to inform the reader about the most recent advances in our endeavor of unraveling the workings of the human turn-taking system in communicative interaction. The contributions are organized into six sections: (1) Foundations of turn-taking, (2) Signals and mechanisms for prediction and timing, (3) Planning next turns in conversation, (4) Effects of context and function on timing, (5) Turn-taking in signed languages, and (6) Development of turn-taking skills.

The Organization of Turn-Taking in Pool Skate Sessions

This study takes pool skating, where only one skater rides at a time, as an example of a turn-taking system, albeit one that is organized not through speech but through bodily actions. This allows us to revisit Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson’s (1974) famous “turn taking” paper—in particular, their initial broad conception of turn-taking systems as including activities other than the speech-exchange systems studied by conversation analysis. Despite the original declaration, non-speech turn-taking systems have evaded close scrutiny for the past four decades. By turning our attention to such a system here, this study makes two contributions: firstly, to the sociology of turn-organized activities (through a comparison of the central features of turn-taking for conversation with pool skating) and, secondly, to the study of how bodily actions can accomplish pre-beginnings (since in pool skate sessions, this is the place to settle the matter of turn allocation in order to avoid overlaps in riding).

Turn-timing in signed conversations: coordinating stroke-to-stroke turn boundaries.

In spoken interactions, interlocutors carefully plan, and time their utterances, minimizing gaps and overlaps between consecutive turns. Cross-linguistic comparison has indicated that spoken languages vary only minimally in terms of turn-timing, and language acquisition research has shown pre-linguistic vocal turn-taking in the first half year of life. These observations suggest that the turn-taking system may provide a fundamental basis for our linguistic capacities. The question remains, however, to what extent our capacity for rapid turn-taking is determined by modality constraints. The avoidance of overlapping turns could be motivated by the difficulty of hearing and speaking at the same time. If so, turn-taking in sign might show greater toleration for overlap. Alternatively, signed conversations may show a similar distribution of turn-timing as spoken languages, thus avoiding both gaps and overlaps. To address this question we look at turn-timing in question–answer sequences in spontaneous conversations of Sign Language of the Netherlands. The findings indicate that although there is considerable overlap in two or more signers’ articulators in conversation, when proper allowance is made for onset preparation, post-utterance retraction and the intentional holding of signs for response, turn-taking latencies in sign look remarkably like those reported for spoken language. This is consistent with the possibility that, at least with regard to responses to questions, speakers and signers follow similar time courses in planning and producing their utterances in on-going conversation. This suggests that turn-taking systems may well be a shared cognitive infrastructure underlying all modern human languages, both spoken and signed.

Historical pragmatics and early speech recordings: Diachronic developments in turn-taking and narrative structure in radio talk shows

In this study we analyse diachronic developments in some of the details of the turn-taking system (turn length, question intonation, hesitation markers) and the role they play in the narrative structures of conversations. Our investigation is based on audio recordings of a popular BBC Radio 4 talk show programme “Desert Island Discs”. These recordings have recently become available as a collection of podcasts reaching back to the 1950s. The early recordings are styled as interviews in a question – answer format. In more recent years, however, the presenter and the celebrity are more likely to cooperate in their different roles to jointly produce a narrative. The presenter brings in a larger amount of background knowledge on the details of the celebrity's life, which the audience may or may not share, and encourages the celebrity to pick up the narrative and continue the story. This overall change from an interview format to the format of a shared narrative is reflected in the minute details of the turn-taking system with differences in turn length and the use of question intonation and hesitation markers.