title: Identifying a temporal threshold of tolerance for silent gaps after requests.
abstract: This study addresses whether there is a threshold, some particular length of silent gap between two speakers' turns, at which negative social attributions emerge. The effect of such inter-turn silence was tested by constructing dialogues where responses to requests were identical and affirmative so that study participants' (n = 380) ratings about "willingness" would be colored by lag time, not semantics. 100 ms intervals between 200 and 1200 ms were tested in a between groups design. There was a notable drop-off in ratings at 600 ms and a statistically significant difference in ratings between 700 and 800 ms.
authors.affiliation: Brian Lamb School of Communication, Beering Hall, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA. froberts@purdue.edu
authors.forename: Felicia
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.forename: Alexander L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Francis
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D009633:Nonverbal Communication; D011930:Reaction Time; D012660:Semantics; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013067:Speech Perception; D013689:Telephone; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D055815:Young Adult