Breathing and speech planning in turn-taking Francisco Torreira Sara Bögels Stephen Levinson Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen, The Netherlands

A psycholinguistic puzzle In conversation, the most frequent transition between speakers takes only a few hundred ms (e.g. Stivers et al., 2009; Heldner & Edlund, 2010) B’s turn A’s turn ms

A psycholinguistic puzzle Planning and producing language takes time: - word-picture naming: 600 ms (Levelt et al., 1999) - simple sentence production: 1500 ms (Griffin & Bock, 2000) B’s turn A’s turn B’s production planning > 600 ms ms

A psycholinguistic puzzle Speakers often plan their turns in overlap with their interlocutors’ turns (Levinson, 2013) B’s turn A’s turn B’s production planning

Direct evidence for overlapping production and comprehension during conversation is scarce Can the breathing behavior of interlocutors provide such evidence? A psycholinguistic puzzle

Direct evidence for overlapping production and comprehension during conversation is scarce Can the breathing behavior of interlocutors provide such evidence? A psycholinguistic puzzle

Research questions In read speech, deeper and longer inbreaths before longer utterances Whalen & Kinsella-Shaw, 1997; Fuchs et al What about spontaneous conversation? What is the timing of speakers’ inbreaths relative to their interlocutors’ turns?

Conversational corpus with Respitrace inductive plethysmography

Initial observations As in controlled experiments (e.g. McFarland 2001) : – Vital cycles – Speech cycles But also (as in Bailly et al for collaborative reading) : – Speech-adapted vital cycles? – Apneas: listeners often stop breathing for several seconds!

Materials Conversational context in which a turn transition is relevant: Q & A Assistant identified Q & A sequences in 6 dyadic conversations (~ 5 h) We restricted the dataset following these criteria: – Answer is relevant to the question – Syntactically marked (wh-word, SV inversion) or intonationally marked (L* H-H%, H* H-H% or H*L-H%)

Breathing in Q&A sequences B’s answer A’s question Time

B’s inbreath Measurements B’s answer A’s question Time Asnwerers’ inbreaths that occurred after the beginning of the question

B’s inbreath Measurements B’s answer A’s question Time Acoustic signs in the speech signal attributable to either a lexical item or particle

B’s inbreath Measurements B’s answer A’s question Time First point of silence, syntactic completion, and prosodic completion Acoustic signs in the speech signal attributable to either a lexical item or particle

Breathing behavior and answer length B’s answer A’s question Time B’s inbreath Presence vs absence Depth Duration

Presence of an inbreath INBREATH NO INBREATH Not all answers are preceded by an inbreath n=145

Answer duration & inbreaths β = 949, t = 3.95, p <.0005

Inbreath depth and answer duration Answer duration (ms) Speaker-normalized Inbreath depth β = -0.03, t = -0.19, p = 0.85

Timing relative to question end B’s answer A’s question Time B’s inbreath

Inbreath timing to question end Answer Question question Inbreath

Answer Question question Inbreath Inbreath timing to question end

Answer Question question Inbreath Inbreath timing to question end

Answer Question question Inbreath answer < 2.5 s answer > 2.5 s Inbreath timing to question end

Answer Question question Inbreath answer < 2.5 s answer > 2.5 s Speech inbreaths? Partly vital? Inbreath timing to question end

Timing relative to answer start B’s answer A’s question Time B’s inbreath

Inbreath timing to answer start Answer Question question Inbreath

Inbreath timing to answer start Answer Question question Inbreath -650 ms

Is the timing of answerers’ inbreaths sensitive to where questions end?

Inbreath We examined the relationship between: -Gap duration -Inbreath timing to answer start Answer Question question Is the timing of answerers’ inbreaths sensitive to where questions end? Answer Question question Inbreath

Are answerer’s inbreaths anchored to question ends or answer starts? Distance to answer start (ms) Gap duration (ms) β = 0.48, t = 10.4, p <

Conclusions Inbreaths are more likely to occur before long answers >breathing behavior can be informative about speech planning in conversation too The timing of inbreaths before answers is sensitive to the timing of question ends, and is very often aligned with it. >evidence of interlocutors’ orientation to turn ends >speech planning often starts early during the interlocutor’s turn: B’s answer A’s question B’s inbreath Inbreath preparation Decision to take an inbreath contingent on answer length ms Draper et al., 1960

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