A Study in Cross-Cultural Interpretations of Back-Channeling Behavior Yaffa Al Bayyari Nigel Ward The University of Texas at El Paso Department of Computer Science February 22, 2008 February 22, 2008 Meeting of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research

2 Back-Channeling Short utterances: uh-huh, yeah, mm-hm... Show active listening Frequent: ~4 per minute (English, Arabic) Below conscious awareness A turn-taking function

3 Misunderstandings are Common in Cross-Cultural Communication culture- dependent interpretations

4 What Causes Problems? Universal Language-Dependent Culture-Dependent smiles simple emotions complex emotions non-lexical utterances words emblematic gestures ?????????????????? turn-taking mechanisms ?????????????????? Culture-dependent behaviors that we think are universal can cause deep misunderstandings.

5 Cultural Differences in Back-Channeling frequency (Maynard 89) words and non-lexicals used timing (this study) –typically in response to cues by the other –but the cues differ...

6 Prosodic Cues for Back-Channels English >110 ms 26 th percentile Arabic < 500 ms >40 ms, with slope >.7% every 10 ms brief pause “When you hear such a cue, respond with a back-channel” is a good description of listener behavior. pitch time Game 2: listen to the cue; what emotional value do you perceive? Game 1: listen to the back-channels

7 Initial Hypotheses Pitch downdash perceived as a cue for a back-channel response American subjects Arab subjects noyes an expression of negative affect yesno

responseprosodic cuelead-in downdash cadence upturn silence full turn back-channel Experiment 1 Stimuli resynthesized to obscure the words, retaining pitch contours subjects asked to judge the naturalness of each response, given the context

9 Participants 18 naive American-English speakers –students from an introductory CS class –mostly Spanish-English bilinguals –no knowledge of Arabic 18 Arabic speakers –7 living in El Paso Texas, 11 in Qatar –some to total knowledge of English 18 exposed American-English speakers –with about 25 minutes of training in this aspect of Arabic, several months before

10 Results of Experiment 1 Ratings of the naturalness of the various pairings * matched-pairs t-test different*

11 Experiment 2 Subjects were asked to judge the emotional state: “ does the speaker sound more positive or more negative? ” downdash cadence upturn

12 Experiment 2 Results * matched-pairs t-test different*

13 Summary of Experiments 1&2 Pitch downdash perceived as a cue for a back-channel response American subjects Arab subjects noyes an expression of negative affect yesno significantly different significantly different

14 What Causes Problems? Universal Language Dependent/ Culture Dependent smiles simple emotions complex emotions non-lexical utterances words emblematic gestures back-channeling Behaviors that are culture-dependent, but that people think are universal, can cause deep misunderstandings.

15 Implication and Follow-Up Question Imagine an Arab happens to use this cue while talking to an American (in Arabic or English) The American is likely to misinterpret it, without suspecting the danger (Experiments 1 and 2) The Arab may feel the American is not being a cooperative listener... (Experiment 3)

16 Follow-on Hypotheses Learners of Arabic who back-channel better will be judged as knowing Arabic better being nicer being more socially effective and the effect sizes will be large

17 Stimuli Well Pronounced Greeting Poorly Pronounced Greeting Well Timed Back-ChannelingPoorly Timed Back-Channeling Absent Back-Channeling Absent Greeting

18 Results significantly different (matched-pairs t-tests, 54 pairs)

19 Conclusions The prosody of back-channeling is not universal. (experiment 1). It is worthwhile for learners to master its meaning. (experiment 3). So they should be taught it, and other turn-taking patterns, and also in other languages. Americans perceive it as negative, but even a brief exposure reduces this. (experiment 2) So people likely to hear even sound-bites of Arabs should also be taught about it.

A Study in Cross-Cultural Interpretations of Back-channeling Behavior Yaffa Al Bayyari Nigel Ward February 22, 2008 February 22, 2008 Meeting of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research Thank You

21 The Phenomenon Back-channel feedback happens when –One person is explaining something –The other produces short response indicating he is paying attention Definition –Responds directly to an utterance of the speaker –Is optional –Does not require acknowledgement by the speaker –Does not interrupt the flow of the conversation

22 Predictive Value of the Cue Corpus-based study found that these times are commonly indicated by a prosodic feature complex which includes a steep pitch downslope, “ downdash ” (Ward & Al Bayyari, 2006, 2007) Coverage = 43% Accuracy = 13%

23 Experiment 3 Stimuli preparation –9 audio fragments –11 sec conversation between Arabic speaker and a learner –Greeting not synthesized –Direction-giving and BC synthesized Subjects were asked to judge the Arabic learner Poor Greeting Good BC Poor BC No BCNo Greeting Good Greeting

24 Previous Work In Arabic: –Statements & wh-questions end with a falling pitch (Kulk et al., 2005; Eldin & Rajouani, 1999; Rifaat, 2005) –yes-no questions generally end with a pitch rise (Eldin & Rajouani, 1999; El-Hassan, 1988) –Back-channels function pragmatically in Arabic much as in English Do not always convey understanding Can overlap the speaker ’ s talk (Ola Mohamed Hafez, 1991)

25 Results of Experiment 2 – cont. Answers to question “ write 2 or 3 adjectives describing the speaker ” by English speakers: For the downslope: half or more used “ angry ”, “ scared ”, “ sad ” or “ disgusted ”

26 Hypothesis The pitch downslope is a cue for back-channel in Arabic, although it is not perceived as such by speakers of American English The pitch downslope is perceived negatively by American-English speakers but not by Arabic speakers In Arabic good back-channeling matters & even more than good pronunciation

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28 Sharp pitch downslope Most likely we’re gonna stay for a month and a week To see how life is there and probably uncle & aunt are coming with us, so it’ d be good chance for you to come visit us OK

29 Masking Original Masked