MSc + PhD How children develop an understanding of conversational back-and-forth; the view from autism

人类主要通过言语互动，几乎所有的互动都涉及会话话轮转换。在不同文化中，一位演讲者发言的时间和被认为是离题的对话回应的类型也有惊人的相似之处。然而，一些人--特别是那些患有自闭症谱系障碍的人--在这一领域表现出真正的困难。例如，口语流利的自闭症儿童和青少年往往比神经性同龄人反应更少，打断更多，在对话中提供更多离题反应。这可能会给人留下这样的印象，即这个人对他们的谈话对象并不是真正感兴趣，这可能会阻碍友谊的形成和维持，也是阻碍成年后求职面试成功的主要因素。目前这项研究的目的是调查口语流利的自闭症儿童和他们匹配良好的神经型同龄人之间的对话反应时间是否以及如何不同。这就需要更好地理解神经典型对话中话轮转换的本质。对会话话轮转换的研究往往集中在反应的时机或反应的“适当性”上。还没有研究考虑时机和适当性可能是如何相互关联的。一项关于计时的研究调查了人们是如何利用暗示来预测对方何时结束对话的。这就像两名网球运动员之间的拉力赛一样，描述了“对话地板”。虽然预测显然在保持对话的流畅性方面起着重要作用，但‘我们意向’的作用却被忽视了。我们-意向性是两个人之间的默契，他们正在一起做某事。也就是说，对于很大比例的会话转换来说，一个人在多大程度上适合接管会话发言权，可能关键取决于他/她的新贡献是否建立在前一轮对话的内容基础上，并发展了共同构建的话题。预测和自我意向性都被认为是自闭症患者的核心问题。因此，两者都可以潜在地解释自闭症患者在会话轮换时间和提供的相关会话贡献方面的困难。目前的研究将使用诱导性生产、强迫选择判断任务和眼球跟踪相结合的方法来调查儿童是否以及何时做出适当的及时反应，以及在观察他人对话时应该如何进行的概念性理解。这项研究将进一步加深我们对人类会话话轮转换本质的理解。它还将允许临床医生确定对自闭症儿童的对话干预是否应该主要侧重于他们对话轮转换的概念性理解，还是他们产生(适当)反应的能力。

Humans interact primarily through verbal interaction, almost all of which involves conversational turn-taking. There are striking similarities across cultures in the timing with which one speaker takes the 'conversational floor' from another and also regarding the types of conversational responses, which are considered to be off-topic. Yet some individuals - particularly those with Autism Spectrum Conditions - exhibit real difficulties in this domain. For example, verbally fluent autistic children and adolescents tend to respond less, interrupt more and provide more off-topic responses in conversation than their neurotypical counterparts. This can give the impression that the individual is not genuinely interested in their conversational partner, which can hinder friendship formation and maintenance and is a major factor preventing job interview success in adulthood. The aim of the current research is to investigate if, and how, conversational response timing differs between verbally fluent autistic children and their well-matched neurotypical peers. This requires a better understanding of the nature of turn-taking in neurotypical conversation. Research on conversational turn-taking has tended to focus either on the timing of a response or on the 'appropriateness' of the response. No research has considered how timing and appropriateness may be inter-related. Research on timing has investigated how people use cues to predict when their conversational partner will finish his / her turn. This depicts the 'conversational floor' as analogous to a rally between two tennis players. While prediction clearly plays an important role in maintaining the fluency of a conversation, the contribution of 'we-intentionality' has been ignored. We-intentionality is the implicit understanding between two people that they are engaging in something together. That is, for a large proportion of conversational switches, the degree to which it is appropriate for a person to 'take over' the conversational floor may crucially depend on whether his / her new contribution 'builds on' the content of the previous turn and develops the co-constructed topic. Both prediction and we-intentionality have been proposed as core problems for autistic individuals. Therefore, both could potentially account for autistic difficulties with the timing of conversational turns and also with provided relevant conversational contributions. The current research will use a combination of elicited production, forced-choice judgement tasks and eye-tracking to investigate if and when children appropriately respond in a timely manner and also the conceptual understanding of how this should occur when observing the conversations of others. The proposed research will further our understanding of the nature of human conversational turn-taking. It will also allow clinicians to determine whether conversation interventions for autistic children should primarily focus on their conceptual understanding of turn-taking, or on their ability to generate (appropriate) responses.