The
perception of pause in question-answer pairs
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Valentina d'Urso and Vanda Zammuner
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| Abstract |
| The hypothesis that the duration of
interturn pauses between questions and answer in verbal exchange is predictable was tested
in two experiements. In Experimenet 1, subjects estimated the lengths of 3- and
7-sec gaps inserted between questions and answers in their own language and in a language
they did not understand; they also estimated gaps inserted into a sequence of white
noise. In Experiment 2, subjects conducted a telephone interview with a person who
was instructed to intentionally delay beginning to answer some of the questions posed; the
dependent variable was the amount of time the interviewer waited for the answer before
spontaneously taking another turn. In both studies the amount of pause perceived or
found acceptable between a question and an answer varied as a function of linguistic
factors or encyclopedic knowledge. The results are interpreted as reflecting a rule
in language use that relates the rhythm of turn-taking to the amount of mental work
plausibly needed to answer a question. |
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| d'Urso, V.
& V. Zammuner 1990 The perception of pause in question-answer pairs. In Bulletin
of the Psychonomic Society 28/1: 41-43. |
