Talker sensitivity to turn-taking in conversation
Abstract
For fluid turn-taking to take place in conversation talkers must simultaneously attend to both the comprehension and planning of speech. This division of effort and attention introduces difficulty in measuring the impacts of hearing loss on a person's ability to communicate. This work takes two approaches to measuring effort in conversation by analyzing how talkers are sensitive to turn-taking. The first measures pupil response around turn-taking to infer how cognitive effort changes during the transition from listening to speaking or vice versa and explores how this effort differs based on the background condition of a conversation. The second aims to understand if the timing of turn-taking is used by talkers as a cue to infer that their conversational partner(s) may be experiencing difficulty. By manipulating the temporal dynamics of turn-taking in real-time, the increase in floor transfer offsets observed in more difficult conversations is simulated without introducing any difficulty, and we can assess if talkers adapt their behaviour in response.
Presenter
Ben Masters, MASc candidate in Systems Design Engineering
Attend in person.