Interpreting Pauses and Ums at Turn Exchanges

In 3 experiments, this article compares how overhearers interpreted second speakers’ contributions to a conversation depending on whether the second speaker responded to a first speaker immediately; paused and responded; said um and responded; or said um, paused, and then responded. The conversational snippets tested were unscripted and diverse; an example of one exchange is, “Are you here because of affirmative action?” (pause, um, or both) “It helped me out a little bit.” Overhearers thought speakers had more production difficulty, were less honest, and were less comfortable with topics under discussion when speakers either said um or paused, and even more so with both. The best explanation for the data is that overhearers are judging, for each question asked, what it means for speakers to produce an anticipated or an unanticipated delay.

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