How is your feedback perceived? An experimental study of anticipated and delayed conversational feedback

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Conversational Analysis

Background:

• Understanding the nuances of conversational feedback is crucial for effective human interaction.
• The timing of listener feedback significantly influences its perceived naturalness and acceptability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how manipulating feedback timing (anticipation and delay) impacts its acceptability and perceived listener engagement.
• To determine the temporal thresholds for acceptable and engaging feedback in spontaneous dialogues.

Main Methods:

• Extracted dialog sequences from spontaneous conversations.
• Manipulated listener feedback timing, advancing it up to 1.5 seconds or delaying it up to 2 seconds.
• Collected participant ratings on feedback acceptability and listener engagement.

Main Results:

• Feedback remained acceptable in 76% of manipulated instances, irrespective of timing.
• Listener engagement significantly decreased when feedback was delayed by more than 1 second.
• No consistent effect of feedback anticipation on acceptability or engagement was observed.

Conclusions:

• While feedback remains largely acceptable, its timing is critical for maintaining listener engagement.
• Delayed feedback, particularly beyond 1 second, negatively impacts conversational dynamics.
• Anticipated feedback does not appear to affect perception in the tested range, suggesting different processing mechanisms.