Working memory is important for online language processing during conversation. We use it to maintain relevant information, to inhibit or ignore irrelevant information, and to attend to conversation selectively. Working memory helps us to keep track of and actively participate in conversation, including taking turns and following the gist. This paper examines the Ease of Language Understanding ...

This paper investigates prosodic aspects of turn-taking in conversation with a view to improving the efficiency of identifying relevant places at which a machine can legitimately begin to talk to a human interlocutor. It examines the relationship between interaction control, the communicative function of which is to regulate the flow of information between interlocutors, and its phonetic manife...

Existing research depicts intergroup prejudices as deeply ingrained, requiring intense intervention to lastingly reduce. Here, we show that a single approximately 10-minute conversation encouraging actively taking the perspective of others can markedly reduce prejudice for at least 3 months. We illustrate this potential with a door-to-door canvassing intervention in South Florida targeting anti...

We are interested in studying turn-taking in dialogue, in particular human-computer discourse. Humans and computers can communicate in any number of ways, such as through an operating system command line, a direct manipulation interface, or even natural language. Turn-taking is a basic fact of life that interacting agents must deal with: who should say what, and when? In some situations, turn-t...

Drawing on Walsh's (2012) idea that boosting learners' contribution and interaction can play a key role in their foreign language learning, this mixed-methods study tried to cast some light on the ways by which teachers, via their choice and use of language, create or block learners' contribution in direct interactions in the classroom. A total of 800-minute recordings of 10 teachers' talks and...

Role-plays provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate how to use English in real life situations and make them focus more on communication than on grammar. Oral presentations like conversations are a great way for students to practice their English skills. Therefore, this paper makes an attempt to investigate whether teaching conversation through role play affects the students’ speaki...

Publicly asserting the necessity of slow, careful attention to immeasurable pleasure and immeasurable cares can be a form of political activism in our speeded-up society. If 'caring' has to be defended actively, people need a public, political language for defending it. How do Americans publicly defend attention to immeasurable pleasures and immeasurable suffering? How do they speak in everyday...