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Previous studies have found that, in the presence of noise, the distribution of floor transfer offsets (FTO) broadens and shifts to the right, and it has been suggested that this is due to increased listening effort. The present study investigates if speakers are sensitive to the timing of the start of a partner's turn during interactive conversation. By manipulating the delay on the channel between two talkers on a turn-by-turn basis, the floor transfer offset (FTO) distribution can be modified to simulate what has been observed in more challenging conversational settings. Talkers were seated in different rooms but could communicate via headset microphones and headphones with gains fixed such that the levels would simulate the two talkers sitting in the same room. Conversations where pairs of talkers solved the DiapixUK spot-the-difference task were conducted in both quiet and noise, both with and without added delay. Measures of speech production (e.g., speech level, articulation rate, etc.) and conversation behavior (FTO, turn length, etc.) are compared across the conditions.
Masters et al. (Fri,) studied this question.