"Taking turns in conversation"
The length between utterances in a conversation between two or more people is usually just 200 milliseconds - just a fifth of a second.
As adults, we indicate we don't want to be interrupted by using linguistic features e.g. talking more loudly, repeating words in the middle of a sentence, and paralinguistic features e.g. glaring at the interrupter.
Sensitive to gap lengths in adjacency pairs - when an interrogative is asked, if a break between utterances of around half a second occurs (break point), something is wrong, e.g. "can i borrow your pen?" reply within a fifth of a second indicates normality, the receiver heard it etc.
Break in utterances of over half a second indicates a problem e.g. they didn't hear the interrogative, they don't want to give you their pen. To summarise, if this question was asked in a standard conversation, if the answer the receiver of the question wants to say is no, the length between utterances will be longer, because it is more difficult to say no than yes.
Interesting - source?
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