Dutch and English toddlers' use of linguistic cues in predicting upcoming turn transitions

Adults achieve successful coordination during conversation by using prosodic and lexicosyntactic cues to predict upcoming changes in speakership. We examined the relative weight of these linguistic cues in the prediction of upcoming turn structure by toddlers learning Dutch (Experiment 1; N = 21) and British English (Experiment 2; N = 20) and adult control participants (Dutch: N = 16; English: N = 20). We tracked participants’ anticipatory eye movements as they watched videos of dyadic puppet conversation. We controlled the prosodic and lexicosyntactic cues to turn completion for a subset of t... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Imme eLammertink
Marisa eCasillas
Titia eBenders
Brechtje ePost
Paula eFikkert
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
Reihe/Periodikum: Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 6 (2015)
Verlag/Hrsg.: Frontiers Media S.A.
Schlagwörter: eyetracking / child language / Prosody / Turn prediction / lexicosyntax / Psychology / BF1-990
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-28988880
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00495

Adults achieve successful coordination during conversation by using prosodic and lexicosyntactic cues to predict upcoming changes in speakership. We examined the relative weight of these linguistic cues in the prediction of upcoming turn structure by toddlers learning Dutch (Experiment 1; N = 21) and British English (Experiment 2; N = 20) and adult control participants (Dutch: N = 16; English: N = 20). We tracked participants’ anticipatory eye movements as they watched videos of dyadic puppet conversation. We controlled the prosodic and lexicosyntactic cues to turn completion for a subset of the utterances in each conversation to create four types of target utterances (fully incomplete, incomplete syntax, incomplete prosody, and fully complete). All participants (Dutch and English toddlers and adults) used both prosodic and lexicosyntactic cues to anticipate upcoming speaker changes, but weighed lexicosyntactic cues over prosodic ones when the two were pitted against each other. The results suggest that Dutch and English toddlers are already nearly adult-like in their use of prosodic and lexicosyntactic cues in anticipating upcoming turn transitions.