ISCA Archive Interspeech 2023
ISCA Archive Interspeech 2023

Cues to next-speaker projection in conversational Swedish: Evidence from reaction times

Kathrin Feindt, Martina Rossi, Ghazaleh Esfandiari-Baiat, Axel G. Ekström, Margaret Zellers

We present first results of a study investigating the salience and typicality of prosodic markers in Swedish at turn ends for turn-yielding and turn-keeping purposes. We performed an experiment where participants (N=32) were presented with conversational chunks and, after the audio ended, were asked to determine which of two speakers would speak next by clicking a picture on a screen. Audio stimuli were manipulated by (i) raising and (ii) lowering fo over the last 500 ms of a turn, (iii) speeding up or (iv) slowing down duration over the last 500 ms, and (v) raising and (vi) lowering the last pitch peak. Out of all manipulations, increasing the speech rate was found to be the most disruptive p<.005). Higher speech rate led to longer reaction times in turn-keeping, which were shorter in turn-yielding. Other manipulations did not significantly alter reaction times. Results may be complemented with eye movement data, to elucidate cognitive mechanisms underlying turn-taking behavior.