Turn-taking in children and adults: - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Turn-taking in children and adults: predictive or reactive?

Laura Lindsay, Chiara Gambi, Martin Pickering, & Hugh RabagliatiDepartment of Psychology, University of EdinburghSlide2

The turn-taking puzzleDuring conversation, we take turns between speaking and listening:

Short gaps/overlaps: 200 ms (Stivers et al., 2009)Production processes take time

– at least 600ms for a single contentword (Indefrey &

Levelt, 2004)

Data from

Stivers

et al., 2009,

PNAS

GAPS

OVERLAPSSlide3

Three questions about turn-

takingPREDICTIONEARLY PREPARATION

DEVELOPMENT

Garrod and Pickering, 2015; Levinson 2016; see also De Ruiter et al., 2006; Magyari

et al., 2014.Slide4

1. Prediction

“cake” (CONTENT)

How can

you

not

like

birthdays

!? Are you not excited

at the idea of eating

the

…

From

2;0

, children

observing

a conversation look at the next speaker before she begins

speaking

(Casillas

& Frank,

2012, Lammertink et al, 2015; see also: Keitel et al., 2013; Keitel & Daumm, 2015)

From

2;0, children make semantic predictions (Mani & Huettig, 2012)

Do children predict timing?

??

400-600ms (

TIMING

)Slide5

2. Early preparation

How can

you

not like birthdays !? Are you not

excited at the idea of

eating

the

…

NO!

Bögels

et al., 2015

Might

be

possible

when

:

Speaker’s

turn

is

predictableListener’s turn is short and simple

However:

children might struggle with early preparation

because their planning abilities are slow to develop(Casillas

and

colleagues

)Slide6

3. The development of turn taking

0;3

0;9

1;0

1;6

2;0

3;0

700

ms

1100

ms

Hilbrink

et al., 2015

Corpus

studies

: 3

months

to 18

months

years

;

monthsSlide7

3. The development of turn taking

0;3

0;9

1;0

1;6

2;0

3;0

700

ms

1100

ms

Hilbrink

et al., 2015

Casillas

et al., 2016

900

ms

5

00

ms

years

;

months

Corpus

studies

: 2 to 3 and a

half

yearsSlide8

3. The development of turn taking

0;3

0;9

1;0

1;6

2;0

3;0

700

ms

1100

ms

Hilbrink

et al., 2015

1200

ms

8

00

ms

(

around

5;0)

Garvey

and

Berniger

, 1981

Mother-child

C

hild-

child

Casillas

et al., 2016

900

ms

5

00

ms

years

;

monthsSlide9

3. The development of turn-taking

Why does it take so long?Children’s production

abilities take long to develop  early

preparation is limited

children predict

semantics

(CONTENT) and can

prepare

early, but they

cannot not yet

predict

when

the

speaker’s

turn

is

going

to end (TIMING)

Do children (and adults) predict

when the speaker will stop talking

by predicting what she

is about to say?Slide10

This study

Interactive iPad-based maze game (4 mazes) Slide11

This study

Example trial24 adults30 5-year-olds (one participant excluded, N=29)47 3-year-olds (13 participants excluded, N=34)

Participants

were reminded of the characters’

names before each

mazeSlide12

DesignFully crossed, within-subjects:

Answer Type Is the content of the question (and its answer) predictable (YES answer) or not (NO answer)?Participants expect Peter Pan to ask about the correct direction (he is always right on filler items)Scene Type

The game has 4 mazes, each with 36 trials (24 target trials and 12 filler trials) Slide13

Predictable

Predictable

Unpredictable

UnpredictableSlide14

Predictable

Predictable

Unpredictable

UnpredictableSlide15

DesignFully crossed, within-subjects:

Answer Type Is the content of the question predictable (YES answer) or not (NO answer)?Participants expect Peter Pan to ask about the correct direction (he is always right on filler items)

Scene TypeAre the names of the two characters the same length?MATCH: both short / longMISMATCH: one short / one long (mean difference: 430 ms

)Slide16

Match

Mismatch

Mismatch

MatchSlide17

Match

Mismatch

Mismatch

MatchSlide18

Match,

Predictable

Mismatch

,

Predictable

Mismatch

,

Unpredictable

Match

,

Unpredictable

Match

Mismatch

Mismatch

MatchSlide19

Hypotheses: gaps

ANSWER TYPE: longer for unpredictable (NO answer) than predictable questionsANSWER TYPE * SCENE TYPE: if participants predict when the question will end by predicting its content;

interaction:

When the characters’ names mismatch in length, we should find a larger difference between predictable and unpredictable questions (compared to when the names match in length) Slide20

Hypotheses: gaps

ANSWER TYPE: longer for unpredictable (NO answer) than predictable questionsANSWER TYPE * SCENE TYPE: if participants predict when the question will end by predicting its content;

interaction: Slide21

Hypotheses: gaps

ANSWER TYPE: longer for unpredictable (NO answer) than predictable questionsANSWER TYPE * SCENE TYPE: if participants predict when the question will end by predicting its content;

interaction: Slide22

Hypotheses: gaps

ANSWER TYPE: longer for unpredictable (NO answer) than predictable questions

ANSWER TYPE * SCENE TYPE: if participants predict when the question will end by predicting its content;

interaction:

Decrease with age

Adults < 5;0 < 3;0Slide23

Results

* - Answer TypeAll age groups take longer to respond to unpredictable (NO answer) than predictable questions (YES answer).

* Gaps < 2 sec; Linear mixed-effects

models with maximal random structure; |t| > 2 means

p<.05

56

ms

, t = 3.25

103

ms

, t = 3.37

119

ms

, t = 4.29Slide24

Results

* - Answer Type: Scene TypeNO interaction between Answer Type and Scene Type in any age group.

t = 0.58

* Gaps < 2 sec ; Linear mixed-effects models

with maximal random structure; |t| > 2

means

p

<.05

t = 0.46

t =0.58Slide25

Results*

– Early preparation (?)Exploratory analysis: is there evidence for early preparation?Character names varied in length

If answer preparation starts before question end:

Longer

character

names

Shorter

gaps

More

preparation

timeSlide26

Results

* – Early preparation (?)The longer

the character name, the faster the

participant’s response

r(45) = -.66

r

(45)=-0.70

r

(45)=-.50

*

Gaps < 2

sec; by-item

correlationsSlide27

Results –

Distributional AnalysisDo children just get faster?

Ex-gaussian

distributionThree parameters:Mu (mean

)Sigma (standard deviation)

Tau (

thickness

of the

tails

)

Tau = 100

Tau = 200

See

Ratcliff

, 1979Slide28

Results*

* Parameters jointly

estimated with Bayesian linear regression

Children’s slow responding

is driven by differences in the right

tail

of the

distribution

Effect

of

Answer T

ype and lack of interaction

Answer

Type

* Scene

Type

replicate on muSlide29

Predicting Timing?

Neither children nor adults timed their answers to questions by predicting the length of the final word

Predictions:

“Fireman Sam” (CONTENT)

600-800ms (TIMING)

Should

we

go

past

…

Fireman Sam?

Do

listeners

predict

question

length

/

structure

?Slide30

Early Response Preparation

Instead, they rapidly prepared their answer as soon as possible, and responded reactively

Predictions:

“Po” (CONTENT)

Should

we

go

past

…

[p]?

Po is a short word, so there is less time to prepare a response

NO!

LONG RESPONSE TIMESlide31

Early Response Preparation

Instead, they rapidly prepared their answer as soon as possible, and responded reactively

Predictions

:“Fireman Sam” (CONTENT)

Should

we

go

past

…

[f]?

Fireman Sam is a long word, so there is more time to prepare a response

YES!

SHORT RESPONSE TIMESlide32

How does the system develop?

3 yo and 5 yo leave longer gaps than adultsHowever:Children are often as fast as adultsChildren are no more variable than adultsInstead, children experience occasional “breakdowns”, leading to very long gaps.Slide33

Conclusion

Children and adults were able to take turns quite rapidly without fine-grained timing predictionEarly preparation of simple responses can afford reactive turn-taking strategiesThe building blocks of the turn-taking system are in place by age 3Children leave long gaps, not because they are slow at producing answers, but because their turn-taking system is less stableSlide34

References

Casillas, M., & Frank, M. C. (2013). The development of predictive processes in children’s discourse understanding. In CogSci 2013: The 35th annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 299-304). Cognitive Society.Casillas, M., & Frank, M. C. (2012). Cues to turn boundary prediction in adults and preschoolers. In

SemDial 2012 (SeineDial

) (pp. 61-69). Université Paris-Diderot.De

Ruitter, J. P., Mitterer, H., Enfield, N. J., (2006). Projecting the end of a speaker’s turn: a cognitive cornerstone of conversation,

Language

, 82(3), 515-535

Garrod

, S., & Pickering, M. J. (2015). The use of content and timing to predict turn transitions.

Frontiers in psychology

, 6.

Lammertink, I., Casillas

, M., Benders, T., Post, B., &

Fikkert

, P. (2015). Dutch and English toddlers' use of linguistic cues in predicting upcoming turn transitions.

Frontiers in psychology

,

6

.

Levinson, S. C., &

Torreira

, F. (2015). Timing in turn-taking and its implications for processing models of language.

Frontiers in psychology, 6.Slide35

References

Maygari, L. & De Ruitter, J. P., (2012). Prediction of turn-ends based on anticipation of upcoming words, Frontiers in Psychology, 3(376), 1-9Magyari, L.,

Bastiaansen, M. C., de Ruiter, J. P., & Levinson, S. C. (2014). Early anticipation lies behind the speed of response in conversation.

Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 26(11), 2530-2539.

Riest, C., Jorschick, A. B., & De Ruiter, J. P. (2015). Anticipation in turn-taking: mechanisms and information sources.

Frontiers in psychology

,

6

.

Stivers

, T., Enfield, N. J., Brown, P., Englert, C., Hayashi, M., Heinemann, T., ... & Levinson, S. C. (2009). Universals and cultural variation in turn-taking in conversation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,

106(26), 10587-10592.Slide36

The development of turn taking

0;3

0;9

1;0

1;6

2;0

3;0

sensitivity to

contingent

vs.

random

exchanges

(Bloom

,

et al.

1987)

decrease in overlaps:

%40

 %20

(

Hilbrink

et al., 2015)

5% overlaps

(Garvey &

Berninger

, 1981)

OVERLAPSSlide37

The development of turn taking

0;3

0;9

1;0

1;6

2;0

3;0

s

ee

also

Garvey

&

Berniger

, 1981

Casillas

et al., 2016

900

ms

5

00

ms

The

duration

of gaps

varies

hugely

with the

c

omplexity

of the

response

and

its

predictability

yes/no:

400-500

ms